What happened to Daddy, she’d asked one day. A day of no visitors.
Her mom laughed but her laugh was inside-out. You want to know the truth, Ellen? You want to know the truth?
I guess so.
Well, yes or no?
I guess so.
Well, I’ll tell you. I mean, look at you. You’re starting to grow yourself a chest. You should know.
Men wanted one thing. They wanted to fuck. As long as testosterone flowed through their bodies, that’s all they wanted. Every act they committed, public or private, great or small, conscious or unconscious, was in furtherance of the overwhelming, unquenchable, unswerving drive to fuck.
Now, some men did everything but the final step—the actual fucking—but, still, their every action was motivated by the exact same desire. Those who had forsworn the act itself basked in the knowledge that their demonstrations of intelligence, daring, and courage allowed them the rarest of pleasures. They would cultivate a woman’s hunger, then walk nobly away from it. Possessing her in the negative.
Men were all the same.
Then that night. That night she had been unable to sleep and, dressed in her pajamas, had knocked softly and entered her mother’s room. The room was dim. And it smelled. Then she saw there was a man in the bed.
Looking back, Ellen could not remember the little girl she had been. Was absolutely unable to recall her feelings, her inclinations. As for desires, she couldn’t have had any. Can one desire what one can’t imagine?
But that night, she lay in the near dark between her mom and the man. Ellen withdrew her mind from the memories.
What did that make Mom? Didn’t matter now. Her aortic artery had burst. Rest in peace, Mom. If you can.
But when the time came to deal with that prick producer, Dick Shale, little Ellen Havertine had known how.
Ellen reached the glory that was the Cherokee Hotel and climbed to the third floor.
As soon as Bobby opened the door she started in. “I just came from church, asshole. You not only fucking killed someone, you killed the wrong someone. Guess who I just met? Fucking Pussy Grace prancing down the aisle. With her partner, Dick-Dave.”
“She was prancing?” Bobby flicked his Bic.
“Bobby, you killed a woman named Violet. Probably the stripper’s friend.”
He set the pipe down, stared at her. “I didn’t kill anyone. Bitch. I would know if I killed someone. Because I would have done it. So don’t walk in here on your high horse. People die all over town, every fuckin’ day. Accidental falls, car accidents, electrocutions, poison. It’s the luck of the draw. Wrong place, wrong time, your ticket gets punched. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Alright, Bobby.”
“Good. That’s settled. Want a hit?”
“First this.” She held her phone across the table. “This was the guy at the house. I saw him at church. He knows me now.”
Bobby looked, relaxed, packed pipes. “That guy? Don’t worry. He already knew you. And I know him.”
“Who is he?”
“That’s Dick Henry.”
“Dick Henry.”
Bobby laughed. “This’s the guy you thought was a rube?”
“Who is he?”
“That’s the Shortcut Man, baby. The fixer. Everybody knows Dick Henry.” He lit up. “Everyone but you, you idiot.”
“He said he was going to fuck me up.”
Bobby nods. “And he will—if you let him.”
“How do I stop him?”
Bobby rubs thumb and forefinger together. “You pay him.”
“Then he can be dealt with.”
He slid a pipe across the table. “Everyone’s got a price.”
Ellen picked up the pipe. Soon she would taste that fragrant purpleness. Wouldn’t care about a goddamn thing. And this ugly, fetid little hotel room in this shitty part of Hollywood would be transformed into a companionable way station along the road of life.
All promises of the pipe were false, of course. Lies from the father of lies. But she knew that. She knew that. That was the difference. Between her, the falling, and the fallen.
She heard that tiny, rustling combustion and then the purple vapor was drawn down her throat. Her heartbeat stepped up a notch, her mentality pressurized behind her eyes, and the yellow bulb on the wire went gold.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rutland Returns
The phone rang at 8:39 a.m. It had to be a stranger. I picked up. “What.”
“Is this Mr. Dick Henry?”
“Possibly. Who’s this?”
“This is Rutland. Rutland Atwater.”
Rutland . . . ahh. Rutland, the library stinker. I hadn’t heard from Mrs. Dunlap again. Maybe this was the first salvo in a bodily-injury beef.
“What do you want?”
“I want to meet with you.”
“Why?”
“I think we could do business.”
“I’m not susceptible to blackmail, Rutland. Get fucked.”
I hung up. I had been enjoying a nice dream. Now just tatters remained, disconnected and wispy. The sky had been green and I’d been breathing underwater. I decided to make coffee.
The phone rang again.
“Dick, it’s Rutland.”
“I thought I told you to get fucked.”
“You did.”
“But you haven’t?”
“I have a business proposition.”
“I don’t see how we could do business.”
“I do. We can meet at a park and my spiel will last less than two minutes. Two minutes is all I ask.”
At the park. Well, he knew part of what I was thinking. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious, Dick.”
Business came from strange places. “Okay, Rutland. Plummer Park. By the basketball court. Ten o’clock.”
“See you there.”
In my youth, Plummer Park had been a nice little neighborhood hang. Some old relics playing checkers, babies in the sandbox, kids on swings, a lonesome few playing tennis in their little white suits.
Later, with perestroika, the Russian Empire collapsed and half the population, seemingly, migrated to West Hollywood and took over Plummer Park. Lock, stock, and balalaika.
They overwhelmed the picnic tables and everything else, leaning on canes, glowering and overweight. Nothing could rouse them from mordant preoccupation with the past. What we needed around here was a dictator issuing orders to dance.
Which reminded me. How do you get a bear to ride a unicycle?
Nail his feet to the pedals and beat the shit out of him.
I entered on Vista Street, walked toward the basketball courts. Ahead of me I saw Rutland moving into the picnic table area. The tables were full. Except for a single place at the end of the table nearest the court. Rutland waved at the immigrants in friendly fashion and sat down.
I figured I was about sixty seconds behind him. But before I arrived, as if by magic, the table cleared. Completely. The refugees looking back in alarm and disgust, gesticulating. Holding their noses.
So that’s how you get Russians out of Plummer Park. I approached, waved to Rutland, sat upwind.
“Hi, Dick,” said Rutland Atwater, force of nature, conqueror of Kiev.
I looked at my watch, held up two fingers. “You got two minutes, Rutland. Let’s hear what you got to say.”
Rutland folded his hands, looked at me. “I googled you.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re the guy who plugged Elton Reese.”
We were getting off to a bad start. “That’s right.”
“They call you the Shortcut Man.” The big man relaxed a little bit. “Our encounter at the library. It made me think. I don’t want to continue living like I have been.”
Did he want a recommendation to the Boy Scouts?
“I want to make money. I want to drive a Mercedes. I want a nice apartment. I want to smoke good medical marijuana. I want to fuck beautiful women.”
Ambition.
I didn’t exactly see where this was going but I was surprised.
“And I owe it all to you.” Rutland smiled.
“You have to find women without olfactory glands.”
Rutland laughed, slapped his knee. “And they’re out there, Dick, they’re out there. They’ve got to be.” He rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “And maybe I’ll even take a bath. Though I can’t tell the difference.”
“Where are you going to get money?”
Rutland smiled affably. “From you, Dick. You’re going to give it to me.” He raised a finger. “Not blackmail. Not by any means. You won’t give me anything. But you’ll pay me. And you’ll pay me well.”
I was intrigued. “What is it that you do better than anyone else, may I ask?”
Rutland clapped his huge, fat hands. “I stink, Dick. That’s what I do. I stink. To high heaven. And beyond.”
He gestured at the Russians. “Did you see them? Running like sheep. The lions of Leningrad! I communicate flawlessly, right across any language barrier. And that’s how I’m going to work for you. When you need someone to pay up, to do what you want, and they resist, they have other ideas? Fine. You send me to their office, to their reception room. And I sit there, reading magazines, scratching my fat ass, until they pay up.” Rutland grinned from ear to filthy ear. “And they’ll pay quick.” He shrugged. “I got lemons, I’m making lemonade. How can I fail?”
I spread my hands. It might work. “Rutland, you could be a genius.” There was something I liked about this guy. As long as I didn’t inhale.
Rutland nodded, smiled.
That’s how the Shortcut Man and Rutland Atwater commenced business.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A Man of Value
It was my fourth call to Perlman, Toothaker, and Westmoreland.
“Perlman, Toothaker, and Westmoreland,” said the receptionist.
“Bob Bateman, please,” I intoned. I imagined myself wearing a starched white shirt, a silk tie, double-worsted wool trousers, whatever that meant, and a pair of thin-soled, tasseled Italian loafers.
A new voice came on the line, smooth and haughty. “Robert Bateman’s office.”
Kathryn Holler spent twenty-seven minutes on her hair every morning and did her makeup in the car on the way downtown to work for a raging psychopath.
“Bob, please.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Dick Henry.”
“And the nature of your call?”
“Big Bob owes money.”
A pause.
“Hold on, please.”
Bateman looked up from his desk to see Kathryn in the doorway. “What?” he barked. The Weatherford matter had driven him certifiably insane.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bateman. You have a call on line three.”
“From whom?”
“Dick Henry.” Putting up with Screaming Bob Bateman was not worth twelve hundred dollars a week. But she had her bills to pay. “He wants money,” she added, unnecessarily. Just to see that vein on his asshole forehead.
“Goddamnit,” screamed Bob, punching up line three. “I thought I told you never to call here again, Mr. Henry. What don’t you understand?”
“Mr. Bateman. You owe my client a sum of money. I’m wondering if I could expect your remittance today in the form of a cashier’s check.”
“Fuck if I’ll pay a penny.”
“Are you sure?”
“Fuck if I’ll pay a penny.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want to pay.”
“Fuck if I’ll pay a penny.”
“Fine, Bob. I’m going to send my associate, Mr. Rutland Atwater, over to your office. I’ve instructed him to wait until the full remittance is made.”
“Fuck if I’ll pay a penny.”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Bateman.”
Bateman, triumphant, slammed down the phone. You don’t fuck with Bob Bateman.
At ten-forty-five the wide cherrywood door of Perlman, Toothaker, and Westmoreland opened to admit a large gentleman with an alligator briefcase.
Polly, the receptionist, looked up at the man advancing toward her and gave him her professional smile of greeting. But by the time the man arrived at her desk, she had become aware of a vast, sickening odor, a miasma that attacked her eyes, her nose, and seemingly penetrated her skin. God, if she didn’t know better, she was going to—
She dived for the trash can and violently unloaded the Ramona’s Cheese Burrito she had unwisely scarfed at ten-fifteen.
From her knees, she looked up at the man. He was smiling. Was it possible he smelled nothing? She thought of recent headaches Dr. Vuong had dismissed. Doctors! Fools all. She was dying. An olfactory tumor. Metastasizing in her head. A grape going onion.
She staggered to her feet. “Excuse me,” she said. “I think I have a tumor. Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Bob Bateman.”
“Do you have an appoin—” Another wave of sickness rolled over her, she went down again, retched into the can.
At that moment Mrs. Holiday, the office manager, walked into the reception area. There she was assaulted by a horrible stench and backed out the way she had come in. She thought she had seen Polly on her knees.
Edmund Torres, a new associate, was on his way to Paul Westmoreland’s office when he saw Mrs. Holiday walking backwards. “Mrs. Holiday, are you alright?”
“There’s something out front,” said Mrs. Holiday, and then, without benefit of trash can, went down on one knee and threw up on the rug.
Out front, the man leaned in Polly’s direction. “I’ll just wait out here.” He smiled. “I’ll read some of your fine magazines.”
Torres moved to Mrs. Holiday’s side. “Jesus, Mrs. Holiday,” said Torres. He tried to help her up by the elbow but she blurched again. All over his new Allen Edmonds two-hundred-forty-five-dollar Bostonians. Each shoe came in its own soft cotton bag.
What the fuck was going on? Torres opened the door to the reception area and understood everything. Familiar to him from the poverty he had escaped was the odor of unwashed flesh. Old Wine-bag at the bus station.
He tried to breathe only through his mouth as he confronted the man. “Hey, Buddy, you’re going to have to move on. You’re going to have to move on.”
But Buddy wasn’t moving on. He looked up and smiled. Waved. “I’m here to see Bob Bateman.”
Torres was breathing in little short, shallow breaths. “Bob Bateman. What do you want with Bob Bateman?”
Rutland Atwater was filled with a sunny happiness, a man who had found his vocation. “My name is Rutland Atwater. I’m here to pick up a cashier’s check.” Except for the smell that accompanied it, his smile could have been described as seraphic.
Polly had crawled out of the reception area only to encounter Mrs. Holiday and her mess. She puked again. Edmund Torres rushed by in the direction of the partners’ offices. Doors were slamming, voices were raised.
Steven Perlman, senior partner, strode out of his office, furious. “I’m on the phone with fucking New York in here. What the fuck is going on?”
Polly got unsteadily to her feet, the world was still spinning. She heard voices.
We’ve got a problem.
What kind of problem?
A stinker in the reception area.
A stinker? Is that a job?
It may be.
Why is he here?
To see Mr. Bateman.
All heads turned to Bob Bateman, who looked as if he might burst.
Bob spread his hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know who he is.”
Torres knew. “His name is Rutland Atwater. He wants a cashier’s check.”
Bateman looked at the surrounding faces. “Don’t look at me. Call fucking security.”
Security’s been called.
Call them again.
I saw clients in the hall.
What clients?
Clients
who didn’t want to come in.
Jesus Christ.
Security’s here.
Finally.
But they can’t get rid of him.
Why the fuck not?
He handcuffed himself to that little railing.
Undo the fucking handcuffs.
They can’t.
Why not?
He swallowed the key.
Fuck me.
We’ve called building maintenance.
Why?
To dismantle the railing.
Oh, for Christ’s sake.
Steve Perlman called Bateman into his office. Westmoreland sidled in as the door shut.
“What the fuck, Bob? What did you bring to work, here?”
“I’m getting blackmailed, Mr. Perlman. I’m not going to take it.”
Paul Westmoreland scratched his head. “Uhh, maybe we should, uh . . .”
“Maybe we should what, Paul? Give in to blackmail? Give in to terrorists?”
Westmoreland coughed. “He’s hardly a terrorist, Bob—”
“Hold on, gentlemen,” said Perlman. “He’s here to collect a debt? What debt?”
“An unjustified personal matter.”
“How much?”
Bateman stood up straight. “Excuse me, Mr. Perlman. This is a personal matter. Nothing to do with business.”
“But you’ve made it my business, Bob.”
There was a knock on the door. Torres stuck his head in. “Yes,” said Perlman.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Torres realized he’d have to play this one carefully. If he ever wanted to make partner. “Uh, uh, Channel Nine is in the building. Ted Sargent. Supposedly, he’s on the way up.”
Bateman felt a peculiar gurgling. Beneath his Bergdorf Goodman two-hundred-dollar calf-leather belt. His annual bonus liquefying in his duodenum.
Kathryn, Bob’s secretary, looked around Torres, knocked at the door. “You’ve got a call, Mr. Bateman.”
“Who?” Goddamnit.
“Dick Henry.”
Kathryn, betraying nothing of her joy, was having one of the great days. There was that crawling kingsnake vein on Asshole’s forehead. Bateman, the rudest, vilest man ever to draw breath, had been through twenty secretaries in three years. But he was a rainmaker and attorneys were never fired anyway. Now he was getting a small fraction of his own. Enjoy, Bob.
Tribulations of the Shortcut Man Page 12