Free Fall in Crimson

by John D. MacDonald

  The phone rang again and she said, “I was so darn busy exposing my beautiful soul, Travis, I forgot to tell you another thing I called about.”

  “Such as?”

  “I talked with Prescott about the drugs for Ellis. He told me that after he got back to Stamford he had a call from Josie. She knew he had flown down to check Ellis over, and she called to find out how he was. He told her what he thought Ellis’s life expectancy was, and it depressed her. He knew that Josie still had a certain amount of influence with Ellis, so he told her to tell Ellis that there was really no point in his being so damned brave about his pain and to encourage him to make a connection and buy something. I think she must have tried to do that, because in early July he had several calls from her, and they all made him cross. Crosser than usual. He just didn’t like people meddling in his life.”

  “But it was okay if he meddled in theirs.”

  “Exactly. That’s just how he was. You know, you are really very good at sizing up people. It makes me nervous, in a way.”

  “Exactly how?”

  “Well … anybody who is really good at reading people can be very good at finding the areas where they are vulnerable and then taking advantage of that vulnerability. You know what I mean.”

  “I will have to get Meyer to explain me to you.”

  “Can’t you do that yourself?”

  “Not as well as he can. According to him I take all emotional relationships much too seriously.”

  “It is very nice for a person to be taken seriously.”

  “I had this same conversation with a girl named Margaret before you were born. She was fourteen. She wanted to be taken seriously.”

  “And did you?”

  “To the point where I couldn’t eat and I walked into the sides of buildings.”

  “I’m jealous of her. And so, good night again, my love.”

  Once again she hung up quickly, before I could equivocate.

  Meyer says that if I could, for once and all, stop my puritanical ditherings about emotional responsibility, I would be a far happier and less interesting man. In childhood I was taught that every pleasure has its price. As an adult I learned that the reprehensible and dreadful sin is to hurt someone purposely, for no valid reason except the pleasure of hurting. Gretel, in her wisdom about me, said one night, “You are never entirely here. Do you know that? You are always a little way down the road. You are always fretting about consequences instead of giving yourself up totally to the present moment.”

  Add those ingredients together and stir well, and you can come up with a lasting case of psychological impotence. Meyer said to me, “You spend too much time in the wings, watching your performance onstage, aching to rewrite your own lines, your own destiny.”

  “And just what the hell is my destiny?”

  I can never forget his strange smile. “It is a classic destiny. The knight of the windmills. The man rolling the stone up the mountain. The endlessness of effort, Travis, so that the effort becomes the goal.”

  Right, in a sense. But Meyer is not all that infallible. There are times. Annie had been totally now. An immersion. So vital and hungry I had no need to be the man in the wings. I turned on the handy projector in the back of my head and ran through a box of slides, of still shots of her in the underwater green of the towel over the bed lamp, when she was biting into her lip and her eyes were wide and thoughtful, and she was shiny with the mists of effort. Being the neurotic that Meyer believes I am has the advantage of giving me a far narrower focus of pleasure than if I did not truly give a damn. The now is that unexpected, unanticipated place where the mind and the body and the emotions all meet in a proper season, destroying identity, leaving only an intensity of pleasure that celebrates all parts of that triad: body, mind, and spirit.

  It is the difference maybe between gourmet and gourmand. In a world of fast food chains, the gourmet seldom eats well. But this again is too much of a celebration of sensitivity: “Oh, my God, look at how vulnerable and sensitive I am!” Which becomes a pose. And turns one into that kind of gourmet who looks for sauces instead of meat.

  The only suitable attitude toward oneself and the world is the awareness of pathetic, slapstick comedy. You go staggering around the big top and they keep hitting you with bladders, stuffing you into funny little cars with eighteen other clowns, pursuing you with ducks. I ride around the sawdust trail in my own clown suit, from L.L. Bean’s end-of-season sale: marked-down armor, wrong size helmet, swaybacked steed, mended lance, and rusty sword. And sometimes with milady’s scarf tied to the helmet, whoever milady might be at the time of trial.

  Meyer has pointed out that condition, that contradiction, which afflicts everyone who thinks at all: The more you strive to be sensible and serious and meaningful, the less chance you have of becoming so. The primary objective is to laugh.

  Eight

  Friday morning I drove the Rolls pickup up past Deerfield Beach, turned inland on 887, and after nine miles of nothing much, I came to Ted Blaylock’s Oasis, looking not much shabbier than the last time I had seen it.

  The long rambling frame structure paralleled the highway, obviously built a piece at a time over a long period. Most of it had a galvanized roof. The sign out at the edge of the right-of-way had been assembled in the same manner, one piece at a time. THE BIKER-BAR. Happy Hours 3 to 7. Customizing—Trikes, Shovels, and Hogs. Chili and Dogs. Service on Carbs, Brakes, Tires, Spokes, Tanks, Frames, and Springers. Tank art. Body Art. Paraphernalia.

  I could look right through the open shed structure at one end, and it looked as though Ted had put up some more cabins out back. Men were working in the cement-floor shed, and I heard the high whine of metal being ground down. One portion had a display window with decals of trade names pasted on it and racks of shiny chrome accessories visible between the decals, next to some motorcycles in rank, new and shiny bright. There were some dusty motorcycles parked in front of the center part, in no particular pattern, along with a couple of big brutish pickups, on top of their oversized tires, and a rack with a few bicycles. As I got out of the car, somebody dropped a wrench and it rang like a bell as it bounced off the floor.

  I went in through the screen door and it slapped shut behind me. Ceiling fans were whirring overhead. The combination bar and lunch counter stretched across the back of the room, with a dozen stools bolted to the floor in front of it. There were a half dozen wooden tables, each big enough for four chairs. There were new posters behind the bar, big bright gaudy ones, showing semi-clad young ladies who, according to their expressions, were having orgasmic relationships with the motorcycles over which they had draped themselves. Another poster showed a cop beating on a biker’s skull and had the big red legend ABATE.

  Three of the brotherhood were on barstools, all big, all fat, all bearded. They wore sleeveless tank tops, denim vests with lots of snaps and pockets and zippers, ragged jeans, boots, a jungle of blue tattooing on their big bare arms, and wide leather wristlets, studded on the outside of the wrists with sharp metal points. Their vests were covered with bright patches and faded patches, celebrating various runs, meets, and faraway clubs. Their helmets were on a table behind them. All three heads were going thin on top but had long locks down almost to the shoulders.

  They stopped talking and gave me the look. It is supposed to instill instant caution, if not terror. The girl behind the counter gave me a different kind of look, empty as glass. She was apparently part Seminole, thin as sticks, wearing white jogging shorts with red trim and a tight cotton T-shirt with, between the widespread banty-egg lumps of little breasts, the initials F.T.W.

  I said to her, “Ted around?”

  “Busy.”

  “You want to tell him McGee wants to see him?”

  “When he’s through in there, okay?”

  “Coffee, then. No cream.” I took the end stool, and the mighty threesome lost interest in me and went back to their conversation.

  “Well, what that dumb fucker did, he
put in that time pulling out what he had and fittin’ in them Gary Bang pistons and that Weber carb and all, and when he got it all done, that shovel wasn’t worth shit. Man, he couldn’t hardly get out of his own way. We come down from Okeechobee first light Sunday, rammin’ it all the way, heads all messed up from that shit Scooter was mixing with ether, Whisker and me racing flat out. I come in maybe fifteen seconds behind Whisker and we could have took naps before Stoney come farting in. After all that work on it, he was so fuckin’ mad, he jumped off ‘n it and just let it fall. And then he run around it and kicked it in the saddle, screaming at it, and he was still so mad he run over to a tree and swung on it and cracked his middle knuckle and got a hand that swole up like a ball. We like to had a fit laughing. That old boy just ain’t handy, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Hey,” said the one in the middle, “we got to move it, you guys. See you around, Mits.”

  “Sure thing, Potsie. Have a nice day, guys.”

  They worked their helmets on as they walked out, swung aboard, and started their engines, and after some deep garoong-garoong-garoong revvings they went droning and popping out onto the empty highway, turning toward the west, riding three abreast.

  Mits gave me sly glances as she cleaned the counter where they had been. I said, “Wouldn’t hurt to just let him know.”

  “You selling anything?”

  “I’m an old friend.”

  She shrugged and went out. She was back quickly. “Hey, you can go in. He asked her and she said it was okay you could watch.”

  “Watch what?”

  “He’s into body art, and this one is kinda pukey, but it’s what she wants, I guess. Go on through to the second room there.”

  When I opened the door and went in and shut it behind me, Ted looked up from his work and said our traditional greeting. “Hi, sarge.”

  “How you, lieutenant?”

  “Come see what you think of this.”

  He had his wheelchair rolled up close to a cot which was elevated on four concrete blocks. A doughy broad-faced young girl lay on the cot. Her denim shorts were on a nearby chair. She wore a yellow T-shirt, and she was naked from the waist down. Ted had his tray of needles and dyes close at hand. There was a broad strip of masking tape placed to keep her big dark bush of pubic hair pulled down out of the way so that he could start his design right at the hair roots. It was almost done. It was a pattern of three mushrooms, growing up that white-as-lard lower belly, chubby romanticized mushrooms, the kind under which would squat a Disney elf. There was a book open nearby with a color drawing of three mushrooms growing in a cluster. Ted had simplified the drawing somewhat.

  He went to work. The girl compressed her lips and closed her eyes. The needle machine buzzed. The window air conditioner rattled and thumped. She snorted and her belly muscles quivered.

  “It’s wearing off again,” she said. “Jesus!”

  “Almost through. Hang on.”

  It took about five minutes more. The buzzing stopped. He caught a corner of the tape and ripped it free.

  “Ouch! Goddamn it, that hurt!”

  “Stop being such a baby, Lissa. Go look at yourself.”

  She swung her legs off the couch and slipped down to the floor and walked over to a narrow wall mirror. She had a white hippo rump, a bushel of meat jiggling and flexing as she walked. She stared at herself and giggled and said, “Wow. This’s gonna blast ol’ Ray right out of his skull.”

  “I can believe it,” Ted said.

  She came walking back and picked up her shorts. Before she put them on she gave me a speculative look and said, “Whaddaya think?”

  “Well, I’d say it’s unusual.”

  “You bet your ass it’s unusual. And I got your word of sacred honor, right, Ted? Nobody else gets the same thing?”

  “Not from me, they don’t. Even if they get down on their knees and beg.”

  She put her shorts on and fastened the snaps.

  He said, “Here, I forgot. Rub this into the design now and when you go to bed and in the morning. It’s an antiseptic cream. For three or four days. Don’t forget. No, go in the can and do it, hon. I’m a little tired of looking at you.”

  She shrugged and left, slinging her big plastic purse over her plump shoulder.

  When the door shut, Ted said, “Play your cards right, Trav, and you could cut a piece of that.” He rolled himself over to the sink with his tray of equipment.

  “ ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who’s the fairest one of all?’ I think I’d be overcome by all that gentle beauty. You know, you’re pretty good at that, Blaylock.”

  “Necessity is the mother of income. Tattooing is very very big lately. You should see my dragons and snakes. The mushrooms took a little over an hour. For eighty bucks. I’ve got one crazy broad for a customer, I’ve put over a thousand dollars’ worth of dye under her hide. Very strange stuff. No anesthetic cream for her. The thing for her is that the pain of the needle is a turn-on. It’s all a marine motif. Dolphins and pirates and old ships, mermaids, things like that. I wish you could see her. Unlike dumpy little Lissa, she’s got a hell of a nice bod. Too nice for what she’s having done to it.”

  I sat down beside his desk, and when he came rolling over I got a better look at him. He was even thinner than before. His color was bad and his thinning hair looked dead.

  “You feeling all right?” I asked.

  “Not too damn wonderful. Like they told me in the beginning, I’m severed so high up, I got what they called a limited life expectancy.”

  “Where’s Big Bess?”

  “Well, there was a very very flashy Colombiano pistolero came in, and he really took to her, she being about twice his height and weight, and she was tired of waiting on a paraplegic crip, so now he has her stashed down in the Hotel Mutiny there, eating chocolates and watching the soaps, while he is out around town gunning down the competition. But I’ve got Mits, my little Indian, and she is a wonder. She’s quicker and better and a lot cleaner than Bess. And my God, that little bod is strong. She can pick me right up and walk with me. Loyal as hell. I wonder why I put up with Bess for so long. Or she with me.”

  “Business going okay?”

  “Real well. I really like this body-art work.”

  “You draw pretty pictures.”

  “That was what I was going to be, several thousand years ago. I had two years at Parsons.” I knew we were both thinking of what had come after that. Basic training, OCS, battlefield promotion, and finally a morning of hard cold rain and incoming mortar fire when I had helped carry the litter down the hill and prop it in the weapons carrier.

  “In the VA hospital,” he said, “I did a lot of sketches of the guys. I wanted to try to be a commercial artist—not enough mobility to make it. Then this came along. I studied up, mail-ordered the gear, started practicing on my friends. It’s a gas. Want one on the arm? Eagle? Anchor? Hi, Mom? Semper Fidelis? F.T.W.?”

  “No, thanks a lot. I always figure a tattooed man either got so sloppy drunk he didn’t know what was happening, or he needed to have a tattoo to look at to reassure himself he was manly. That F.T.W. is what’s on the T-shirt out there, on Mits. What is it?”

  “It’s been around awhile, Trav. It’s the outlaw biker’s creed. It stands for Fuck the World.”

  “Oh.”

  “Something special on your mind?”

  “I shouldn’t come out here and ask for favors.”

  “This is the second time in … what is it?… Anyway, lots of years. I just hope to hell there’s something I can do.”

  I leaned back and rested the heel of one boat shoe on the corner of his desk. “What I need to know is how much the bike clubs are into the drug traffic.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. It accentuated the death look of the long bones of his skull. “So far, the question is too loose. The answer is too complicated.”

  “Ramble a little.”

  “Well, take the Fantasies. The insignia is the blac
k fist and the yellow lightning, with a red circle around it. With the local affiliated clubs they could maybe put five to six hundred machines on the road, as against the two thousand the Bandidos could mount out west. Now most of these guys are factory workers and warehousemen and mechanics and such. They have meets and shows, smoke pot, wear the sincere raggedy garments and heavy boots, get tattooed, sport a lot of chains and medals, grow big bushy beards, zoom around on weekends with their so-called foxy ladies hanging on behind, drink a lot of beer, smoke a lot of pot, blow coke. What they have, Trav, is a kind of brotherhood hang-up. Anybody is in trouble, they all help. They look a hell of a lot nastier than they are. It’s a charade. You get hard with them, they’ll stomp you flat into the ground. But if there’s no provocation, they have nothing to prove.

  “Now as to trafficking in drugs, the story is a little different. There are the club officers, with what the law calls no visible means of support. The officers are the link between the troops and the drug importers and distributors, the money washers, the mafia accountants. Now say we take some group leader captain, call him Mother Machree, and he gets hold of one of the troops, Tom Baloney, and he tells Tom that when he gets off work at the body shop he is to go to the corner of First and Main and sit idling his engine and somebody will hand him a package, and he’s to run it up to such and such a corner in Hialeah, weaving around through the back streets, shaking any tail, and get there at seven on the nose and hand it to the woman in the red dress who asks him how many miles he gets to the gallon in that thing he’s riding.”

  “What’s the payoff to Baloney?”

  “That’s one of the points I want to make. He gets the knowledge that he has been full of brotherhood and loyalty, and he knows that Mother Machree will toss five hundred bucks into the pot for the next beer bust. But the troops are getting restless. They know that maybe Mother got six thou for setting up that foolproof run, and there’s the feeling around that maybe the officers are getting too far into the business. Some of them have taken to wearing the corporation garments, blow-dry hairstyles, limos with Cuban drivers. Too much separation between the officers and the troops. That is the kind of bitching I hear. They are being used, and they know it.”