A Postmodern Love

by Nick Totem

  “Chau the Dog.”

  “I knew it. He went after you, too.”

  “Yeah. He beat you up?”

  “He told me Lana owed him money. He knew everything about her. Her name. Date of birth. Her address. He said she owed him twenty thousand dollars. I didn’t believe him. He was full of shit.”

  “You’re smart,” Thomas couldn’t help saying, now stung that he had fallen instantly for that con.

  “He said if I didn’t want to pay her debt, I should stay away from her. I told him to fuck off, and the guy punched me, just like that.” He looked down and pressed his lips together, grimacing. “It was so unexpected that I couldn’t . . .”

  “Hmm. You didn’t call the cops.”

  “No. I should have at that time. But I was afraid that Lana was involved. I asked her about this man, indirectly, but she didn’t know anything. Then it got ugly after I proposed to Lana.” Dietrich gulped down the scotch and signaled for another one.

  “You proposed? Did she accept?”

  A woman came in and glanced at them before approaching the bar.

  “She didn’t have a chance to. Lloyd got me fired. He has business with the Mafia, the Triad. He laundered their money in the good olde US of A. He threatened my employer so I was out. But that’s okay, I opened my own consulting firm. I write computer codes for high frequency trading. I’m doing okay. But it was bad for a while. Anyhow, I told Lana about what Lloyd was doing to me and . . .”

  “And?”

  “They must have argued. They must have fought, I don’t know. She quit working for him and went to work with Dominic. Then three years ago she disappeared. She came back last year but now she’s gone again.”

  “I see.”

  “What about you? Did that thug do anything to you?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said hesitantly. “He pulled the same stunt on me.”

  “He beat you up.”

  “Fuck no. I’d put a bullet through his fuckin’ face.”

  “What then?”

  “He scammed me. The same thing he said to you, but I fell for it and I paid him the money.”

  “No. Really?”

  “Yeah, I know. Stupid. But he’ll get what’s coming to him. I filed charges against him. The cops are looking for him now . . .” Thomas suddenly stopped; a faint doubt crept up on him, that he shouldn’t be telling Dietrich.

  From behind the counter, the blender started to make a loud noise.

  Dietrich leaned forward and said, “Listen. Do you know about Cristiano?”

  “What about him?”

  “So you know?” he said, nodding. “I suspect Lloyd had something to do with his disappearance. Poor guy. A musical genius from what I heard. Have you listened to his symphony? Really good.”

  “You think so?” Thomas said suddenly and shrugged. “Lana, Cristiano, Lloyd, Chau the Dog. Something twisted about their history.” He gulped down the rest of the drink and ordered a cognac.

  “We have to help her. I’ve got this plan, which is based on game theory, a triangulation between you and me and Lana to defeat Lloyd. What do you think? The three of us. Whenever she comes back.”

  “What? Are you crazy? She doesn’t need any help. She’s a grown woman, she’s damn smart. She’s smarter than I’m. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She doesn’t need your help to enjoy the private jets, the expensive clothes Lloyd provides for her.”

  “You’re wrong. She doesn’t want to be with him. He’s obsessed with her. He’s always around to destroy any real chance she has.”

  “Real chance? Are you kidding me?” Thomas shook his head.

  “Think about it,” Dietrich said earnestly. “If I can’t have her, I’m not going to let Lloyd have her. I’m going to get my revenge. It’s too late for me. I confronted her at the art exhibit but she didn’t feel the same about me anymore. It’s all about payback now. I’ll get her away from Lloyd if it’s the last thing I do . . . And look into Cristiano. Something is not right there.”

  “Hmm, we’ll see,” Thomas said. The idea of causing harm to Lloyd appealed to him. He took a big gulp of the cognac, and leaned back, mulling over what he had learned. Suddenly, as if he couldn’t contain himself any longer, he said loudly, “Lloyd is a fucking money-cock.”

  “A what?” Dietrich stared at him, puzzled.

  “A monkey-cock is a person, male or female, who lives for money, takes it in the ass for money, and uses money in turn to pound other people into submission.”

  “Hah,” Dietrich laughed and called for another glass of scotch. “A money-cock, I like that.”

  “Lloyd is a goddamn money-cock. He flashed his money around. I’ve witnessed it myself. His neat stack of money. And what with his fancy watch that he was checking all the time. His clothes. His bodyguard. His private jet.”

  “True enough.”

  “There is a long line of money-cocks, let me tell ya. Stretching all the way back to the first man. An enormous invisible money-cock exists somewhere, squirting money, in an enormous shower that if you were close enough you would drown in it. Quattleberns with his private jets and Rolls-Royce and chauffeur must be very close, close enough to be buried under its bushes. And it was not just the earth, it was young boys I met in the Army Reserve, whom the money-cocks forced to swallow their fear and die. The human race is not going anywhere but under, deep underground where it belongs. All that talk of going to the stars is just that, has always been, gibberish nonsense, designed to con little boys and girls into high-minded submission, into indentured servitude underground. The last great man who talked of going to the stars got a bullet through his head. That’s money-cock’s business for you.” Thomas was breathless as he finished his rant; he simply couldn’t control himself, and yet he felt that Dietrich would understand him.

  “Couldn’t agree with you more. Maybe Cristiano was his first victim.”

  Thomas chugged down the cognac and called for another one. “Yeah, he was. And Lana, too. And you. And me.”

  24

  Despite his cool attitude during the meeting with Dietrich, Thomas delved into Cristiano’s past. He searched for Cristiano’s symphony, not knowing if it even existed. But there it was on YouTube.

  On the screen the video posted four years before began to play. There was a full orchestra consisting of only string instruments—violin, viola, cello, bass, harp—rows and rows of them. As the musicians were busy tuning their instruments, a cacophony echoed in the concert hall. The camera panned out, displaying the audience occupying all the seats, including in the mezzanine, the young faces and the older people of various ages. The chaotic noise suddenly stopped, yielding to slight rustling here and there, as the conductor walked on stage. A loud applause erupted. The conductor wore a black suit with a bow tie and black rimmed glasses, and his gray hair was combed back smoothly. He addressed the audience in a warm, strong voice.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, students and members of the faculty. My name is Clarence Harding. As many of you know, I’m a professor in the music department. Tonight I have the distinct pleasure of presenting to you: The Young Composer Concert Series. Tonight’s composition is The String Symphony written by Cristiano Caetano Cameos. Regrettably, the symphony is incomplete. We have only the first two movements. Even so, this is a most unusual and innovative composition. As you can see, the orchestra consists of only string instruments, hence the name. The symphony is also called the Voice of God. Some critics may find fault with such a claim. However, you will agree that there are passages in this symphony that reach the sublime heights of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Beautiful, harmonious, unique melodies. But the similarities end there. This is a strange, unique composition, unlike any that has come before in terms of instrumentation and acoustic arrangement. If you listen closely, you’ll hear many new innovative techniques, such as what I’d like to call acoustic intersection and amplification. Just as when you cross two beams of light in harmony, the points of intersection are much b
righter, more glorious. It will undoubtedly give you a conception of the cosmos, not just in the acoustic, but in the visual; it will evoke for you a panorama of the universe, of creation, but also through a lonely voice, humanity. And lastly, the composer, though he is not here with us, dedicated this symphony to Lana Godwit Fauves.”

  The conductor ascended the podium.

  Then a single violin began to play. A very soft, high pitched note stirred, stretching out and becoming like a voice that was issuing forth a single command, a spark of light shearing through the darkness, a cosmic wind emanating from the edge of the universe. The note gave rise to a melody, sweet and rustic. It repeated. Another violin joined in. They repeated. Many more violins leapt in unison, evoking the wingbeats of migrating birds, the waves of ancient seas, the light rays of starbursts. Other instruments rose, inserting themselves, and sounds bounced off others, at times sustained others, or chased one another. Together, all the instruments moved, like a wave, rising to a thunderous rhythm.

  In the second movement, the lone voice of a cello moaned, reminding one of a time before time. Another cello buzzed hoarsely; another voice cried out. One cello carried a soft melody, the note reaching higher and higher, and another answered, the only voices in the stillness in between. The consoling voices peaked with a fierce harmony, pushing up with them the other sounds, seemingly resurrecting all the colors, a colorful play in the sun, ending in a unison of melodies, lifting high to the farthest extent of space.

  Regardless of how the music professor had described the symphony, all Thomas could hear was sadness, the unfathomable sadness of a man.

  Cristiano’s symphony didn’t seem enough, though he listened to it dozens of times, letting the music fill all the emptiness in his house. Then he listened to Bach, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and he searched for esoteric composers, modern composers—Adams and Glass—playing them day and night, even during his sleep, when modern music screeched softly in the background.

  While he was traveling deep into classical music, he also went searching for information on Cristiano. On Google, he found several articles published eight years before by small newspapers near Stanford.

  In one article, a passage read: Police in Palo Alto are hoping the public can help them find a missing man. Cristiano Caetano Cameos is a graduate student in the Music Department of Stanford University. He was last seen by his fiancée, Lana Fauves. Cristiano Cameos, 25, is described as 5 feet 11 inches tall, about 160 pounds, with curly brown hair and brown eyes. He has a two centimeter mole on the back of his left elbow and another small mole behind his left ear. His last phone call was at 4:20 pm on Sunday July 24th. He was last known to be wearing a light blue cotton T-shirt and jeans, a dark blue sweater, light brown suede shoes and brown leather belt. His fiancée says Cristiano Cameos has no special needs and requires no medication.

  Another article caught Thomas’s attention: . . . Cristiano Caetano Cameos, a talented and promising composer in the Stanford University Music Department, has been missing for a week. Despite extensive searches by the local police and friends, there have been no traces of him. Fliers have been post all over Palo Alto. His fiancée, Lana Fauves, found a note left behind that suggested that he had gone to Death Valley. Acting alone, she went to Death Valley in July to search for him, where she suffered heat stroke and loss of consciousness and has been recovering in a Los Angeles Hospital. The Death Valley Sheriffs Department has also launched a search that has been limited by the extreme temperatures. Anyone with information regarding Cristiano Cameos, please contact the police department . . .

  “Wow, she nearly died,” he said to himself. Then he hit the print button. He printed all the articles and pinned them up on the wall of his study. He expanded his Google search to any person missing, not just Cristiano, and to San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, and beyond, and by the time he finished, he had covered the entire wall with printouts of cases of missing persons spanning three states. In the middle of this paper maze, however, was a black and white snapshot of Cristiano, curly hair, a good-looking face, sensuous lips, and innocent, angelic eyes, perhaps too innocent for this world. He thought he could recognize those eyes; he might have seen them in the Iraqi boy.

  He wasn’t done yet; he began to google Lana but found very little. He did come across a two-year old article about a charity specializing in cleft lips surgery in third world countries; the article had a picture of the volunteers in Russia, and there she was, standing among doctors and nurses, looking plain and grave, with their names in the caption. In another rare find, he found an article in a local newspaper that had a picture of Lloyd and Lana; she was dressed in a business suit and standing a step behind him. The article was dated five years ago; it reported that a hedge fund, the Omega High Yield Fund, had been under investigation by the district attorney for money laundering. He perked up when he read that Lloyd had been investigated for money laundering; he felt that he could use this to get Lana and to get back at Lloyd, but the details of such actions eluded him. He printed both articles, and they, too, went up on the wall. After mulling over this news in the following days, he decided to ask Dietrich during their next meeting.

  25

  The summer came and sometimes boiled, reminding him of being burned. In the heat of a summer night it is passion that boils most intense, but in the case where there is no passion, only loneliness, that loneliness is burned into one’s very soul. As the thrilling intoxication and obsession that had led to pain and the recurring what-ifs receded with the season, Thomas’s old routine resumed. They had had a ceremony for Jeffrey Marshal at the morgue before the body was cremated, and remembering his death, Thomas went back to work conscientiously, checking and rechecking everything before each surgery. He promised himself to keep death away from his patients. Like so many things in life, Jeffrey Marshal’s cause of death was inconclusive; it could have been a heart attack or a pulmonary embolism. The California Medical Board continued the investigation, as if they were a vindictive bunch obsessed with destroying Thomas.

  Some days, when the images of Lana intruded uncontrollably, he hated having to work and desired to be free to travel the world; other days he was thankful to have meaningful work to go to. Some days he was grateful for the steady income from working as a doctor, but other days he raged against a middle-class existence and envied the private jets owners of the world. No matter how hard he were to labor, he could never offer Lana a life of private jets.

  The old adage—the only way to cure women problems is more women—was never truer. He connected with Diane. During dinners, across the table, he beheld her conventional suburban wholesomeness, whose likes and dislikes held no secrets. She shared with him photos on her phone—her dog, her teenage kids, and the “absolutely beautiful” places where she had vacationed. When he had sex with her, it was with the light off and with quietness. His fingers caressed her breasts, slightly sagging, and the abundance of her body, and though it didn’t give him the pleasure he once had, he was still grateful for the very fact that if he chose to, he could have it for as long as he wished. Also in that summer he spent time with his mother, taking her to Thailand and Cambodia and enduring her endless speeches beseeching him to have a family and give her grandchildren.

  In the autumn forlornness fell like leaves, when the sunsets were most beautiful, seeming to tell him of something awaiting at the end of the day. The leaves of September quietly slipped into a yellowing of October and rattled lightly in the cold air and in the gloomy sky that was becoming more overcast each day. By then he had forgotten about Diane. Wanting to keep up with modern times, he downloaded Tinder and found Amanda, an Asian woman, whose eyelids’ surgery, nose job, chin implant, and hair dyed red, had almost transformed her into a plastic white woman. Depending on the vantage points, sometimes Thomas could almost see an entirely different face, as if she had two distinct faces. A feisty business woman, she had sex with a sportive zest, counting her orgasms and never stopping until the count of
three. She was rich enough and had an opinion about everything, though none original. The two-face Amanda kept inquiring about his income and reminded Thomas so much of his ex-wife that he was glad she soon found a better match with her financial adviser.

  The past came back one day when detective Mosqueda called to inform him that they had raided Chau the Dog’s hideout in Garden Grove, south of Los Angeles, but the fugitive had not been found. This news stirred a bit of excitement that eventually faded away.

  Throughout the changing of the seasons the collage on his wall got more crowded with articles, not just about missing persons, but also hedge funds and financial crimes including money laundering. At the end of fall Thomas finally arranged to meet Dietrich, but this time Dietrich appeared much more composed and didn’t want to discuss the past. Dietrich told him very firmly that he was moving on and didn’t want to talk about the investigation into Lloyd’s hedge fund. “I’m dating a beautiful woman now. I don’t want to think about those people anymore. You should do the same. You’ll get over her faster if you have someone else in your life,” Dietrich said. “I have just one piece of advice for you. You don’t want to mess with Lloyd.” Thomas could see that Dietrich was trying to hide something, but he had no leverage to make Dietrich talk.

  Winter finally arrived. On one gloomy day, a Saturday afternoon in late February, Thomas was cruising along Fifth Ave as he had often done, and saw Dominic’s gallery. He pulled over and sat in the car, overcome by a strange compulsion. At length, he got out and approached the gallery. With quick steps he walked past it while observing the interior. He saw no one. Doubling back, he did the same, and finally he stood at the edge of the window, hiding himself and looking to see who was inside.

  The Savoir Gallery appeared as he remembered it. New paintings on the walls undoubtedly featured yet another up-and-coming artist. Dominic was sitting at this desk, when Thomas entered.