Devil's Dance

by Daniel Depp

  ‘It’s like investigating a murder while the corpse is sitting up laughing at you.’

  ‘You might want to talk to Lewis Tollund.’

  ‘The actor?’

  ‘They did a bunch of films together, were real close for a long time. Then something happened – with Jerry it always does – and they stopped talking. But he and Lewis were tight. Lewis was as close to a brother as I ever saw Jerry have.’

  ‘You know where the sister is?’

  She shook her head. “We never liked each other.’

  ‘What about this priest?’

  ‘Father something or other. Father Michael. Yeah, I think that’s it. Cheney is small, there were maybe three or four other Catholic families around where Jerry grew up. It was Father Mike’s parish.’

  ‘Jerry a good Catholic?’

  ‘Jerry? Ha! He was an atheist when I knew him. I dunno, maybe he’s found Jesus since but it doesn’t sound that way. I don’t think he was ever religious, he used to make fun of the whole thing. Father Mike was just more of a mentor than anything else. Look, nobody in Jerry’s family ever read a book or gave a damn about movies or anything except beer and barbecue. Just regular old Americans. Father Mike used to talk to him about books and movies. Jerry felt like he owed the guy. We used to have fights about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Jerry would send him money. I don’t know how much, but it was always regular, or at least whenever Jerry had some, which was never that often. You know Jerry and his fiscal sense, which is zero. I always figured that Jerry thought money was dirty somehow and just wanted to get it out of his hands as fast as possible. Anyway Jerry used to send money to the parish. We’d be nearly flat broke and in a panic and I’d find out Jerry had sent off a chunk of change to the priest.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A few hundred at a time, when I knew him. Never more than a thousand, I don’t think. I mean, these are just the ones I caught. There might have been more. Probably were. Jerry is an asshole in a lot of ways, but when he cares he’s got this weird sort of loyalty.’

  ‘He’s a hard guy to figure out.’

  ‘When you do, let me know how it turns out, will you? I was married to the guy for five years and every goddamn time I thought I knew who he was, he turned out to be somebody else.’

  They heard the sound of Carl’s Mustang pulling in and the garage door opening.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Vicky, and went out there. In a moment voices were raised. The girl came back into the room.

  Carl shouted: ‘I don’t have to answer to you, you stupid goddamned cunt.’

  Carl shouted: ‘I’ll fuck half of southern fucking California if I want to.’

  Carl shouted: ‘Take your fucking baggy tits and flabby ass and get inside and leave me alone. You’re goddamn lucky I fuck you at all, nobody else would.’

  Vicky begging, crying.

  ‘Great show, huh?’ said the girl. There were tears in her eyes.

  Vicky came back in, passed through to the back of the house without saying a word, shielding her face with her hand. A door slammed.

  ‘I think your interview is over,’ said the girl.

  Spandau stood up. ‘Thank you for the beer and the conver-sation. And please thank your mother for me, she’s been a lot of help.’

  ‘So maybe the day isn’t a total fucking waste, huh.’

  ‘I gave you my card. I’m David. You never told me your name.’

  ‘Joy,’ she said. ‘My name is Joy. What a hoot, ain’t it?’

  ‘My old man used to beat us,’ Spandau said to her. ‘I can’t remember thirty happy seconds when that guy was anywhere within a mile of us. But there are good things and good people out there. You can find them, and then you hang on to them for dear life, because they’re what get you by. One day you get control of your own life, you get to say who you want in and out of it. Things get better, I promise. The hard part is not letting the bad shit ruin you before all the good comes rolling along.’

  Joy nodded and then burst into tears. She ran over and put her arms around Spandau, hid her face among the buttons of his shirt. He let her stay like that for a very few moments and then touched her hair and gently pushed her away.

  ‘You hang in there, kiddo, okay? You got my number if you need it.’

  When Spandau came out the garage door was open and Carl was inside cleaning the windows of his car. Spandau started toward his own car then stopped and turned around and looked at Carl.

  ‘What the fuck is your problem,’ Carl said to him. They stared at each other and then Carl gave this contemptuous laugh and turned his back on Spandau and went back to washing his car.

  Spandau walked quickly over and kicked Carl behind the right knee. Carl buckled and slid down the side of the car to the garage floor. Carl was big and muscular but it was all for show, built for nothing but to look good on the screen. A broken nose would send Carl into a month of unemployment. Carl was no problem.

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ said Carl.

  ‘I’ve decided I don’t like you,’ Spandau said to him. He got out his cell phone and turned on the camera. ‘If you have any sense at all you will just sit there and shut up and not move.’

  Spandau took several photos of Carl, then took photos of the Mustang and the license plate.

  ‘What are these for?’ Carl started to climb to his feet.

  ‘Tell me you’re getting up,’ said Spandau. ‘Please tell me this is what you’re doing.’

  Carl sat back down.

  ‘The girl has my telephone number,’ said Spandau. ‘All she has to do is make one call and you will find two or three short-tempered cops knocking on your door. I know several personally who get tired of seeing vile bastards like you walking around loose, and you would be a great way to work out their frus-trations. And these photos will also go to every cop and social worker I can think of, along with a sworn statement of what I saw through that window. The only reason you are not being force-fed a tire iron is because of that kid. Her life is confused enough already. Never touch her again. Or better yet, get the fuck out of her life. Get the fuck out of both their lives. I mean it.’

  Spandau wanted to kick him again but thought better of it. He got into his car and drove away.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Araz was dressing when his mother, Kadarine, called up the stairs.

  ‘Araz!’

  ‘Yes, mayr.’

  ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘Yes, mayr.’

  ‘Can you stop by the Ralph’s on the way home for bread and milk? We don’t have any bread and milk.’

  ‘Yes, mayr.’

  A pause.

  ‘Will you be late?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘The Ralph’s may not be open.’

  ‘Mayr, I think the Ralph’s is always open. I think it’s open twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, even though he wasn’t.

  ‘Are you going out with Anush?’

  ‘Yes, mayr.’

  ‘Tell her mother I said hello.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Tell Anush I said hello as well. She’s a nice girl.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Don’t forget to tell her mother. She’ll be mad at me if you don’t. That woman, she takes offense at everything. She drives me crazy.’

  ‘I know what it’s like,’ said Araz.

  ‘What?’ said his mother.

  ‘I said I know, I’ll be sure to tell her if she’s home.’

  Pause.

  ‘Why wouldn’t she be home?’ she said. ‘Where would she be at night in the middle of the week?’

  Pause.

  ‘Be sure to say goodbye to your father.’

  This finally irritated him. When the fuck have I not ever said goodbye to my father? Like I’d ever walk out and never say goodbye, like it has ever happened.

  He dressed and went downstairs to the living
room. His mother sat in a chair watching TV. His father’s bed was in the corner, where it had been ever since the stroke. His father was sixty, not an old man, but he’d had a stroke the previous year and barely walked or spoke. He understood most things or at least they thought he did. Anyway he cried sometimes, usually at very small things, like not saying goodbye when you left the house.

  Araz kissed his mother, went over and kissed his father. His father looked up at him with dark, damp eyes. He smiled and laid his hand on his son’s chest.

  ‘Stay out of trouble, Pop,’ he said.

  The old man’s smile widened. He doesn’t understand what I’m saying, thought Araz, I’m sure he doesn’t. It’s just the voice, he must recognize something about the voice. Araz’s mother was convinced her husband understood every word, and discussed TV shows with him as they watched.

  ‘My god, Garo, did you see that, she’s killed her husband. Had her lover put the body in the car and bury it. It was the DNA that did it for her, Garo, it’s amazing how they do that stuff now. Used to be all we had were fingerprints and you couldn’t get fingerprints off a body, Garo, at least not in the old days. I think they can now. Araz?’

  ‘What, mayr?’

  ‘Can they get fingerprints off bodies now?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said, though he wasn’t sure.

  ‘Did you hear that, Garo? Fingerprints off everything. Amazing. Be careful and don’t forget the bread and milk.’

  This last part for Araz. You had to listen carefully, she’d never take her eyes off the TV, sometimes you never knew who the hell she was talking to.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Araz pulled into the driveway of the Salopian family’s home. He started to get out of the car but the front door flew open and Anush came scuttling out.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Araz, half in, half out of the car.

  ‘Get in get in get in!’ she said, hurrying to the passenger side and jumping in. ‘Let’s go! Go!’

  ‘What the hell is wrong?’

  Mrs Salopian came out the door.

  ‘Slut!’ she yelled.

  ‘Go go go, for fuck’s sake,’ said Anush, whose name means ‘sweet’ in Armenian. She gave her mother the finger as the car began to back out.

  ‘Whore!’ cried her mother.

  Araz rolled down the window. ‘My mother says to say hello, Mrs Salopian!’

  Mrs Salopian came rushing at the car. Araz backed out quickly into the street and he and Anush drove away laughing.

  ‘What have you done this time?’ Araz asked Anush.

  ‘Do you think this is cheap,’ she said, and unbuttoned her sweater. The dress she wore underneath was short and cut remarkably low.

  ‘That’s like something Sharon Stone would wear to the Oscars,’ he said.

  ‘You see? She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’

  ‘No,’ said Araz, ‘it means I can almost see your nipples. In fact I think I can see a little brown there.’

  ‘You don’t like it? I wore it for you. I thought it would steam you up a little while we dance.’

  ‘It will steam everybody up a little,’ he said.

  ‘This is what I love about you,’ she said. ‘You’re not the jealous type. Other guys I’ve dated, it’s like there’s always a problem, it’s suffocating, you go out and some guy talks to you, there’s all this shit, like I don’t have any fucking control over what asshole comes up to me, am I supposed to put out his eye with a toothpick or something? You, you’re so sweet, you don’t have all these male insecurities, you know who you are. I love that.’

  ‘What are you going to do while we’re dancing and your breast falls out?’

  ‘It’s just a tit, for chrissake,’ she said. ‘Look!’

  She opened the front of her dress to expose her boobs. Some guys in the car next to them honked and shouted. Anush flashed them again, laughing. Araz sped up. The other car followed them, trying to stay apace. Araz pressed down on the accelerator, changed lanes, darted in front of another car, and floored it.

  ‘Are they still following?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  ‘Why the fuck do you want to cause so much trouble,’ he said. ‘I should just pull over and give you to them.’

  He was going nearly a hundred. When he couldn’t see them in the mirror, he changed lanes, slowed quickly, and exited the freeway.

  ‘That made me all hot,’ she said. ‘Come on, didn’t it get you hot?’

  She reached over, felt his crotch.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘Pull over.’

  ‘Are you crazy? Not here.’

  She began to unzip his fly.

  ‘You want to keep driving, that’s okay, but I’m not wasting this.’

  He pulled over and parked across the street from a Starbucks. She blew him as he watched people drink their coffees. When she’d finished, she said,

  ‘Are you going to fuck me later?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Lewis Tollund lived in Encino behind a high wrought-iron fence in a house that was a very limp stone’s throw from the street. You might be tempted to infer from this that the grounds were not large, but you would be mistaken. Once you were allowed through the front door and passed into the house, you confronted a living room with a soaring cathedral ceiling and an acre of clear window that showed an immaculate Zen rock garden and beyond that another landscaped garden and beyond that a pool and a tennis court.

  ‘There’s a stable somewhere,’ said Lewis Tollund, ‘but I haven’t been out there in years. I screwed up my back about ten years ago and had to stop riding. Got rid of the horses. I miss ’em, god knows, but it’s cruel to just let them sit there and not ride them. A bit like a woman,’ he said, and flashed that famous smile.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ Spandau said.

  ‘I confess it had less to do with helping you than just hearing about Margashack. I haven’t seen the crazy bastard in a long time. I know he must be in some kind of trouble – hell, he always was, and most of it he stirred up himself out of sheer boredom, I think. I miss him.’

  ‘How long since you’ve seen him?’

  ‘Five, six years. Ran into him at the Farmer’s Market in West Hollywood, of all places. Said hello, gave me one of his bear hugs. He’s a great hugger, our Jerry. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years before that. Made the usual promises to stay in touch but of course we didn’t. Well, he tried. To my great shame I blew him off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. I think age has something to do with it. I just woke up one day and realized I’d gotten old, it wasn’t even middle age anymore. And Jerry didn’t. Jerry is the eternal child, the eternal puckish kid who sticks his finger in the cake icing simply because you told him not to, just to watch you blow up at him. Jerry’s this existentialist Peter Pan, he creates chaos to remind himself he still exists. And there was that mystic streak. I used to call him my Mad Monk. You can see it in the movies, there’s very much that samurai ethic that runs through all of them. That’s why we clicked. We understood each other that way. I did zazen, Jerry drank. He used to call it hitting the liquid satori. We had some good fights together, with each other and side by side against the philistines. I kept giving him malas, I even taught him a chant once. Useless. Somebody did tell me he’s taken to carrying around a rosary, of all things. Maybe he’s found God.’ The thought seemed to amuse him.

  ‘You think that’s likely with him? I mean, does he strike you as the sort that would?’

  ‘Jerry’s problem is that Jerry is a bad Catholic. Always was.’

  ‘You mean he believes but doesn’t practice?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘You have to remember we’re talking about Jerry here, and not some normal human being whose actions stand at least a chance of making sense. Jerry moveth in ways mysterious to know. Jerry the mad monk, the dark mystic. Jerry is a guy who doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t believe
in Heaven, doesn’t subscribe to a single Christian belief other than the scourging presence of guilt, and guilt without redemption at that. Again, man, look at the films. They’re these great macho epics, but every one of them is about guys who are trying somehow to redeem themselves.’

  ‘But redeem themselves to who?’

  ‘That’s the trick, see. Jerry is like the guy who thinks he’s committed some heinous crime and is desperately looking around for a cop to surrender to but can’t find one. The dangerous thing about Jerry is that he does shit so he can be punished. If you can grasp this, you’ve got the key to Jerry Margashack, lock, stock, and barrel. It’s exhausting. Sad and exhausting. I never minded marching alongside Jerry into righteous battle, but he’d stir up shit out of that black need of his, and you’d find yourself mired in some bloody crusade and realize there was no point to it, other than Jerry’s need to taste blood, his own and somebody else’s. I got tired of watching it happen. He’s got this charisma, our Jerry. People follow him into battle and then they waste their lives.’

  ‘You felt that was happening to you?’

  ‘To an extent. I mean, you feel used. It was the same with Jerry and women. Probably still is. He’d latch on to a woman, fall madly in love, and for a while it was like the heavens opened and the angels sang. Up until he turned, and, man, he always turned. He’d pick them up by the ankles and use them like a cat o’ nine tails to beat himself. Jerry could take it, they couldn’t. By the time he finished there wasn’t much left. You talked to Vicky. God, there was a woman who loved to be punished. That whole relationship was based on it. It was touch and go as to who’d kill who first. She was tough, man. The best favor Jerry ever did her was finding that Asian broad and walking out. I hope her taste has improved since.’