Ringer

by Wiprud, Brian M

  Wilmer turned, bent, and put his arms out, and I jackknifed so that Purity rolled into his arms. He turned to one of the town cars where a kid had opened the back door. Resting Purity’s shoulders on the leather backseat, he clamped her thighs in his hands and slid her like a casket into a hearse and shut the door.

  “I’ll be right back, I just have to pay the bill.”

  “No need, Morty, she has a running account, and we don’t accept cash.”

  “Well, I am sure you do.” I fished through my pocket for a twenty. “You certainly seem to provide full service.”

  Wilmer held up a hand the size of a dinner plate. “I don’t take tips for doing my job. ’Sides, you’re from the neighborhood. We do solids.”

  I put the flat of my entire hand in the center of his palm. “Solid.”

  In East New York, it was understood that when you did someone a “solid” it was a favor that would be repaid, an open debt, like when you got a buy-back from a bartender or a free coffee at the deli. Solids were classic Brooklyn—people there were very nice and helpful, but not at their own expense. You didn’t get something for nothing, and there was an underground economy whose currency was favors and minor kickbacks at every level, almost like bartering. You never knew if you would be paid back for the favor, but there was a sense that it was good to have a lot of unpaid favors out there, like uncashed checks or a 401(k) or karma. There was a name for people who knew and honored this system of checks and balances:

  “You’re a stand-up guy, Wilmer, thanks.”

  He just nodded his giant head and waved as he turned back to El Rolo.

  * * *

  I found a term in this screenwriting book I’d never heard before, something called a racing cutaway, where the screen is briefly blurred by the camera turning quickly before it stops on a scene somewhere else completely—let’s try that here, because now we have to get back to the mansion a half mile away. So the camera pans quickly away from me, screen blurred, and when the camera stops we see Tony in the back of the limo, peering over the seat and whispering on his phone.

  “She’s going for the ring, that’s what I’m saying. We saw Purity at the bar just like Abbie said we would, but she was with the Mexican, the one who chased me off, and this Mexican told Gina that the ring is magic, that it belonged to Jesus Christ, and he’s a secret agent from the pope or something trying to get it back from Grant. Hm? I dunno. Anyway, she told him about when I attacked Grant in Manhattan and stuff, and sold the Mexican on the curse idea, that Satan is after the ring, she’s here at Grant’s mansion trying to get the ring back and hand it over to Morty. Hm? Morty is the name of the Mexican. I can’t put her on the phone. I dunno where she is. I’m in the limo. Hm? Well, I last saw her when she got out of the limo. I was asleep, but I woke up. Hm? Well, she met Grant at the door, and they run off down the road together. It’s dark down there, I can’t see nobody. That’s right, she said she’d get the ring from Grant and hand it over to the Mexican to end the curse. Hm? Her dress doesn’t have no pockets, so I don’t think she has the wax ring. Hm?” Tony’s eyes turned glassy. “Oh, she could put it there, huhn?”

  * * *

  Another racing cutaway, to a clearing in the scrub pines just off the driveway. In a shaft of moonlight, Gina has Grant by the shirt front, her large, dewy eyes looking up into his. Grant in turn is holding her lightly by the shoulders, blinking rapidly, his lips churning alternately with resolve and longing.

  Gina tears open his shirt and puts her hand on his chest.

  “You have removed the amulet!”

  “It itched,” Grant mumbled.

  “Robert, I had a vision, it all came to me, I know about the ring! It is from the finger of the conquistador Hernando Martinez, and fashioned from gold that once held the true cross! You must return it! It is stolen, as if from Christ himself! How did you get it? Did you steal it?”

  Grant winced, and was just about to kiss her when she pushed him away and cast her gaze on the ground.

  “I see, you stole the ring.”

  Grant stepped forward, his breath coming faster. “I did not steal it. Someone else…”

  “Then how did you come by it?”

  “It was Pasqual, he stole the ring. We were boys at the La Paz orphanage, we didn’t know any better. Pasqual, he had the ring, and when a home and family was found for him in Brooklyn, and he was to leave the orphanage, he gave it to me, so that I would find parents.” His lie was seamless.

  “And you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did not return the ring then?”

  Grant sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then you must return it now.” Gina turned, her palm out flat between them in the moonlight. “I will give it to the Mexican, to Morty.”

  Through the trees behind them, the headlights of a car coming down the drive flash. The car was Purity and me returning to the mansion.

  The gold ring of Caravaca glistened in the blue light as Grant held the one hand up and gripped the ring with the other. Then he paused.

  “Did you have any visions about us? About you and me?”

  Gina’s hand gracefully held his face. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him passionately on the mouth, the two of them one silhouette.

  When she pulled away, Grant’s hand was still where it was but the ring was gone. His face was aglow with infatuation, not moonlight. She opened her palm, and in it shone the holy ring of my ancestors.

  “Come,” she whispered, closing the ring into her one hand while leading him back to the house with the other.

  * * *

  Another racing cutaway, to Dixie entering Purity’s bedroom and flicking on the lights. I followed behind Dixie, with Purity over my shoulder. I bent and flopped Purity onto the bed with more force than I intended. Dixie lunged for the Perrier bottle that almost tipped off the bed table.

  Purity moaned and rolled over.

  I arched my back. “Carrying her is not as easy as it looks.”

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, Morty?” Dixie shot me a suspicious glare. “What were you doing out with her, staying here?”

  I laughed. “As I recall, Dixie, you sent me out here in that crappy green car. I would just as soon be in Manhattan. So if I can just have the ring, and a ride to the train station, I think we can wrap this up.” My mind was on the plump little desk clerk back at the hotel. Perhaps she was working late.

  “Let me find Robert.” Dixie thrust the Perrier bottle into my hand. “Could you see that Purity drinks this? She’ll feel better for it in the morning. Then turn off the lights.”

  * * *

  Cut away briefly to Paco peering through the cracked door of the guest cabana, his yellow predator eyes fixed on the illuminated balcony doors.

  * * *

  I sat on the bed next to Purity. “Purity, you want to drink this?” I gave her a shake, but she just moaned. With a sigh I set the bottle back on the nightstand. “Well, it is here if you want it.”

  I draped the comforter over her and went to the French doors to the balcony. The curtains were blowing with the sea breeze, so I shut the doors, and latched them.

  * * *

  Cut away to Paco’s yellow eyes going dark when I shut off the room light.

  * * *

  I came down the stairs, jacket over my shoulder, and found Dixie crossing the foyer from the living room.

  “Robert? Robert??”

  “Is he not here?” I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  “We arrived together,” she barked from the other room, reappearing in the foyer, her hips swaying with determination in the purple jungle print pants, those amazing implants bouncing ever so slightly under the lavender pleated bustier. What can I say? The notion that perhaps Grant had gone out for ice cream gave me ideas. After all, it was only the previous evening that Dixie and I were as one, so the images of passion were fresh in my mind. Let us remember that I had consumed my share of wine, and that the previous year i
n Mexico had not exactly been a bonanza of beauties.

  Impulsively, I took her by the hand as she passed and twirled her toward me.

  “Querida, I am sure he just stepped out to the Dairy Queen. Perhaps we should just relax with a glass of wine and wait for his return.”

  * * *

  Cut to Purity in bed, moonlight through the window making crosses on the wall. She lifts her head and scans the room through the veil of her hair.

  Rolling off the side of the bed, she popped deftly to her feet and tossed her hair back. On a side table she found an elastic next to the Perrier bottle and put her hair into a ponytail. Her eyes were bright and determined—it would seem she had not been drunk after all, yes? From the dresser she pulled out a pair of black sweatpants and pulled them on under her dress. Then she pulled the dress over her head, dropped it to the floor, and kicked it under the bed. She turned to the dresser so that our R-rated film audience is not cheated the sight of her lovely tanned breasts. I think we’d only seen these breasts when she was tanning in the first part of the movie. Or did we see them when she was in bed with Skip? The same cup size as Dixie’s, they had a very pleasing and decidedly fruitlike, fresh, young shape, and did not stand rigidly at attention like the implants, if you know what I mean.

  If you don’t, well, more’s the pity.

  * * *

  Cut away to Paco leaving the confines of the cabana and making a beeline for the rock wall next to the balcony.

  * * *

  Dixie yanked her hand away from mine. “Please, Morty.”

  She turned from me toward the front door.

  “Dixie, really, it is a sin not to make the best of every predicament.”

  I stepped up behind her and cupped my hand on her bottom just as she opened the door.

  She yelped, both from the surprise of my fingers caressing her fruit and from the sight of Robert on the stoop. His shirt was torn open, and he wore a giddy twist to his lips. Next to him stood the curvaceous and utterly stunning fortune-teller’s niece, Gina.

  To be honest, I am not sure how best to capture Dixie’s emotions on film. I did not witness her expression. How could I have seen it from where I stood, her delightful rosy buttock in my grasp?

  Ah, but I think we all know human nature well enough and women in particular to know that it must have been an exceptional moment. It did not matter to her that she had transgressed with me, or that I was fondling her pear. She was focused entirely on trying to calculate—in an instant—the tableau before her. I think, however, the equation “one plus one” was the obvious formula at hand, so Dixie was not puzzled for long.

  I have flipped through the screenwriting manual, and nothing seems satisfactory to capture her surge of emotion. The book suggests the use of metaphor. So are we to insert the image of a snarling tigress? Would that overplay the moment for our audience? I fear so. The audience might imagine that somehow an actual tiger had arrived at the mansion to further confuse things, and was ready to devour the cast and end the story here. The manual also mentions the use of flash fantasies to translate the action Dixie would like to have taken were she at complete liberty to express herself in any manner whatsoever. So we see Robert suddenly standing in a desert munitions testing ground, Gina at his side. An approaching jet fighter lines up the crosshairs on his chest, Dixie in the pilot’s seat with her thumb over the red button. Missiles burst from the jet and snake down to where the target vanishes in a boom and a mushroom cloud. Again, this may overplay our hand.

  Perhaps our best option is to underplay the moment, because Dixie didn’t burst into the flames of a jealous tirade or give her lover a knuckle sandwich. Yes, I believe what she did was smile brightly. This is what she had trained herself to do during all those years as a fund-raiser listening to boring old rich people and letting them fondle her as I was doing at that moment. This makes sense, too, because she put out her hand to Gina and cocked her head. Perhaps her smile was a little too strong, but other than that, I think she managed not to let laser beams shoot from her eyes.

  “Hi, I’m Dixie. Have we met?”

  * * *

  Cut back to Purity’s shadowy bedroom. I know there are a lot of cutaways, but there was much that was happening all at once. A split screen might work, but chapter 12 says cutaways build more suspense in a motion picture.

  At this point, Purity was dressed in black sweatpants and matching hoodie, with tennis shoes on her feet. She was holding her phone and played back my voice, from when we spoke on the beach.

  “Killing a despicable person may in the end make the killer the instrument of God’s will … If Robert tried to hurt you, I would not allow it … I would kill Robert Tyson Grant to protect you.”

  With a sly smile, she put the phone back in her purse and turned toward the dark bathroom, where she found a fresh bottle of eyedrops that she stuffed into her hoodie pocket. She headed for the balcony doors, then unlatched them and opened them.

  * * *

  Paco was halfway up the rock wall, and his cat eyes went wide.

  * * *

  Cut back to the foyer, and Dixie.

  “You’ll have to excuse me if I’ve forgotten, I meet so many people. Bobbie, really, you should introduce your friend.”

  By this time my hands had retreated behind my back, and I did my best to look like my only thoughts were of kittens and buttercups.

  “I’m Gina, and I know all about the ring. I saved Robert’s life today, and we’ve made a connection.”

  “A connection?” Dixie sounded like she was seeing the same kittens and buttercups I was.

  I doubt it.

  * * *

  Cut back to Purity, who pauses at the balcony railing and trots to the bed table, where she opens the green bottle of Perrier and starts to gulp.

  About halfway through the bottle, she knit her brow and took the bottle from her grimacing lips.

  “Blech!” She set the bottle back on the bed table and made for the balcony. Stepping out into the moonlight, she deftly threw a leg over the railing and swung herself around to the rock wall.

  * * *

  Cut to a close-up of Gina’s face.

  “A vision. I know about the ring, about the curse, all of it, and the ring must go back on the finger of Hernando Martinez immediately. Morty, do you have the finger?”

  “My bags are still in the green car,” I said, with my buttock-grabbing hand in the air where it could not possibly have had any chance of fondling Dixie’s bottom. “You have the ring?”

  She opened her hand and showed us all the ring.

  “Excellent!” I moved past Dixie and the couple on the porch. “Let us get this done with and end this merry-go-round, yes?”

  I marched over to the car, and Dixie looped her arm around Robert’s, leading him in my wake. She gave him a searching look, and he nodded almost imperceptibly and winked. Gina trailed behind them.

  Do we need to show Gina switching out the counterfeit ring that Robert gave her for the trick one from the magic shop? I will leave that to your creative people, but it would be a good chance to see her perhaps lift her dress to access a hiding place in her underwear, or perhaps reach deep into the velvet chasm of her bosom. Let us keep that R rating alive and well.

  I opened the trunk and pulled the little humidor from my bag. It creaked when I opened it, and the finger made a slight crunch as I plucked it from its recess.

  Gina came forward. Eyes were wide all around, so let’s get that in extreme close-ups as I slowly extended the mummified finger toward Gina’s cupped hands.

  * * *

  At that moment, Purity was descending the wall just as Paco was ascending the wall. What happened?

  Purity jumped the last few feet down from the wall, checked the pool-lit surroundings, then slid around the side of the house to the sliding glass patio doors. She peeked into the living room, lit only by light coming from the adjoining foyer. With a shove, she silently slid the door open. In a camera shot from the bushes,
we see her slink into the house.

  The camera in the bushes pulls back until we find Paco, who was crouched behind and next to the pool pump enclosure. He turned his yellow eyes from where Purity had vanished back toward the balcony. Emerging from the bushes, he trotted toward the rock wall and the balcony.

  * * *

  Cut back to the action by the green car.

  Eyes were wide all around, remember? I slowly extended the mummified finger toward Gina’s cupped hands.

  A foot from the finger, Gina slid one hand over the other, exposing a gold ring that dimly hummed in the fractured porch light.

  Flame burst from Gina’s hand. She yelped.

  The ring fell to the macadam, sizzling and shooting sparks before it made a loud pop.

  Only a scorch mark and a puff of smoke remained where the ring had been.

  All four of us stared down at the ground, mouths agape, and perhaps the camera can capture this by looking up at us looking down.

  Grant: “Holy…”

  Dixie: “My stars!”

  Grant: “What was that?”

  Dixie: “It exploded!”

  Me: “You do not see that every day. Wow.”

  “That smarts.” Gina was waving her hand in the air—I don’t think she expected the trick ring to get so hot.

  Dixie looked at Grant in amazement. “The ring just exploded when she put it near the finger!”

  Grant shrugged, a squint gripping his eyes.

  I looked cautiously at the finger, a little uncertain as to whether it, too, might explode, and gently placed it back in the humidor, snapping the lid shut.

  Gina was trying to ignore her burned hand.

  “The curse is over. The ring is no more.”

  Of course the ring was in her underpants, next to where almost any man would forfeit his worldly possessions to be. Perhaps we can do an X-ray shot of the counterfeit ring in her undies?

  Dixie’s eyes stopped wobbling with wonder when she hit upon what this all meant. The fake ring had been destroyed, so Morty would stop asking for the real one. She glanced over to where we see another X-ray shot of the real ring in Grant’s pocket. OK, I did not know where he had it at that moment, but he never liked to be separated from it, and it was not on his finger or on a chain around his neck. Next, she imagined an X-ray shot through the house, to where Purity lay dead in a crumpled heap on the patio, Paco sneaking back into the cabana.