A Filthy Business [Kindle in Motion]

by William Lashner

  “Rufus Davenport,” he said as he reached out a hand.

  “Dick Triplett.”

  “You’ll like the Balblair, Dick. Nice caramel color, a little sweet, a little spice.”

  “Sounds like my wife,” I said.

  “Then why are you wasting your time here?”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “Ah. My wife would be a white zinfandel, thin and cheap and avoided at all costs.”

  “Ex?”

  “Sadly no.”

  I reached past him to get hold of my drink.

  “What’s your game, Dick?” said Rufus.

  “Acquisitions.”

  “Interesting. Companies? People? Art?”

  “All of the above.”

  “Did you come with a buyer or a seller?”

  “I’m a new member so I came alone. I didn’t want to bring anyone without first seeing what the Chadwick Club was all about.”

  “Lucky you, you can leave when you choose. I’m here until the fat lady finally pulls herself off the carcass of a congressman from Oklahoma.”

  “So you’re a lobbyist.”

  “Most of the members are lobbyists of one sort or another. The guests are either clients in from Omaha or assholes with a whiff of power. The members pay, the guests play, and everything gets written off. That, my friend, is how legislation is baked in the real world.”

  “You sound quite cynical there, Rufus.”

  “I’ve been doing this too long. I should have been a high school teacher like I set out to be a long time ago.”

  “That sure sounds rich,” I said. “Banging all those nubile high school girls with stars in their eyes.”

  “What? No. Jesus. How creepy is that? I just wanted to teach English. Gatsby and Hamlet.” He gave me a stare from those beady little eyes that would have frozen the heart of a man with a heart, and then smiled thinly. “At least you’re in the right place, Dick. Drink up.”

  As he waddled off to find his guest, I took a sip of the liquor. A little sweet, a little spice, yes, but with a line of bitterness running through it. Whatever Rufus Davenport knew about Fitzgerald or the Bard, he didn’t know his Scotch. I took a moment to scan the crowd. There was something thrilling about the scene, this conglomeration of money and power discussing how to sell the American people down the toilet before the whores arrived. The very sight was enough to renew your faith in the genius of democracy.

  And then I saw him, standing like a sentry in the corner, tall and mournful with a marmoset on his head. Detective Booth. I took another sip of the Scotch and headed over. This was what I had planned for, this was why I had come. I would casually chat with him, flatter him when I could, mention an opportunity that might fit his unique talents, and set up a meeting in which I would buy his soul. It would be as easy as eating pie. I was making my way toward him through the crowd when a bell tinkled in my brain and the room quieted.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Skye, standing now at the door of the salon, her breasts almost spilling out of her top, her wide, puffy lips smiling, a triangle dangling from one hand and a silver wand held delicately in the other. “If you’ll please make your way to the ballroom, the festivities are about to begin.”

  The crowd surged to the far end of the salon, where a great set of double doors were suddenly flung open. I wanted still to have my moment with Detective Booth, but something had dulled my purpose and I found myself swept along with the tide. The chatter had dimmed, as if we were about to witness a spectacle of sorts, the hush broken only by a bout of senseless laughter. I took another sip of my Scotch and felt my head fill with bitter cotton as the crowd carried me through the doors and along a portico toward the entrance to a great room thrumming with music and brightly colored lights. When we were all inside, a row of spotlights flashed on.

  And suddenly there they were, all in a line, up against windows curtained shut from the night, women, young and younger, with long hair and red lipstick, dressed in tight dresses that showed off leg and breast, smiling with bright-white teeth. There were men, too, young and thin in tuxedos, but it was the women who stole the applause and drew out another bout of insane laughter. And after a moment and a few words from Skye that I couldn’t decipher, the neat line broke up as the women made their way about the room, smiling like hostesses out to ensure the comfort of the guests. Thank you for flying Chadwick Air.

  “Hi there,” said a blonde who had taken hold of my arm. I don’t know how she got from the far side of the room to my side, but it seemed to have happened in a skip. “My name is Mandy. You look happy.”

  I laughed, and realized the strange manic laughter I had been hearing was my own.

  “Would you like another drink, Dick?” said Mandy.

  I looked down at the Scotch: two ice cubes stranded in a shallow puddle with a hint of blue. “You know my name.”

  “I’ve been told to take special care of you.”

  The other women who’d been in the line had made their way among the members and their guests. The women were clutching arms, talking with bright eyes. The men’s faces were flushed, they had their arms possessively around the women’s waists and were leaning forward while they talked as if they were making points during an intense discussion of moral philosophy. I looked at Mandy and realized she might have been the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

  “You might be the most beautiful woman I have ever sheen,” I said.

  “Do you want another drink?”

  “Not like the lasht one. How young are you?”

  “Old enough. Do you want to go somewhere, Dick? Somewhere private? There are rooms upstairs.”

  “I don’t feel so shpunky.”

  “Maybe another drink would help.”

  “Maybe. But not the Scotch. No more Scotch.”

  “We could rustle up some cocaine or weed if you want?”

  “The dynamic duo.”

  “But first I need your card.”

  I patted my jacket and then pulled out a white card. She took it and waved it in the air and suddenly Skye was in front of us.

  “Three four eight,” said Mandy.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “We’ll need a room and some refreshments,” said Mandy. “Along with a blue twist.”

  “Got it,” said Skye, handing over a key. “Two F.”

  “Are you ready, Dick?” said Mandy.

  “Ready weddy meddy.”

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “Lovely.”

  And so we did, though I don’t remember climbing the steps. But I do remember that as she pulled my nearly paralytic frame out of the ballroom, we passed a stolid, mournful figure with a furry little monkey on his head.

  “Look who it ish,” I said. “Detective Booth.”

  Detective Booth said nothing.

  24. Blood

  Blood.

  25. Cain & Cain

  I bolted upright, stark naked except for a plastic tube sticking straight out of my chest. In that moment the world burst upon me with all its sordidness and morbidity, and what had been the silvery hum of angels in my ears exploded into an uproar. Bright light was raw pain in my eyes, washing out all the color of the room except for the red on my hands, on my legs, spattered upon the walls and across the sodden bed upon which now I sat. The wild array of red against a bleached backdrop was a crimson Rorschach pattern, two roosters humping a butterfly during the apocalypse.

  I grabbed hold of the tube and yanked it from my body. More red swelled along the needle and rolled down my chest. The room swayed, I began to fall—until something as rough as iron clutched my shoulders and pulled me back to sitting.

  “Mr. Triplett, stay with us.” A woman leaned over and slapped me; I barely felt it and slap! she did it again. “We need to get you up and out.” A pair of grotesque swollen lips danced over rows of bleached teeth forming something like words. “Mr. Triplett, do you hear?”

  “Where?”

  “Wherever you tell us
to take you.”

  “What?”

  “You need to wake up. You need to get on your way. Breathe this in, it will help.”

  A pile of white powder was pressed to my nose and I inhaled out of reflex. My head jerked back from a pain shooting like fire up the inside of my face even as the cap of my skull lifted and a trumpet sounded to start the derby. My heart took off, galloping like a speed horse.

  “Mr. Triplett. We need to get you out of here. Lift him up, Henry, and take him to the shower.”

  “What did you do to me?” I said as I felt the iron grips leave my shoulders and grab me beneath the arms.

  “Henry is taking you into the shower. You need to be cleaned off. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “Done?”

  “Clean him up.”

  I was hauled from a great mess smeared upon the bed and lugged out of the room, my feet leaving a trail of red as they dragged across the wooden floor. Lying on the boards, beside the trail, was a pocketknife, drenched in blood, marked with prints.

  I sat in the shower stall as barbs of heat struck my flesh. The water swirling around me before heading to the drain was stained crimson. My memory of the night was like that swirling water, mostly clear except for discrete lines of shocking color.

  I remembered Mandy with her long, blonde hair and lithe body pulling me past Detective Booth and up the stairs.

  I remembered her undressing me like an invalid, cutting off my shirt with a pocketknife when I fumbled with the buttons, and then her own clothes falling from her body like leaves from an autumn tree, revealing something so perfect as to almost be proof of God’s existence.

  I remembered Mandy slowly laying her naked body upon mine like a gentle kiss.

  I remembered the cocaine, chopped and lined with a knife’s blade, becoming a dart of pain shooting through me.

  I remembered banging away at Mandy from behind, working like a piston as she looked back with something dead on her face, and me carrying on, banging and banging, feeling nothing but anger.

  I remembered wandering the hallway, naked and dazed, glimpsing images of bodies twining, of limbs being devoured by mouths, of boots and breasts and whips and ball gags until it all became in my mind a whirlpool of naked body parts and old men with teeth stained crimson sucking youth from long, perfect bodies.

  I remember Mandy pulling me back, forming a line with the knife, something blue now mixed with the white, and my “Wallahoo!” as I sucked it up through nostrils already scorched.

  I remembered pounding away with her legs over my shoulders and my hands about her throat.

  I remembered waking from the dead with a needle in my chest, the whole of my body baptized in blood.

  And now, in the shower, with the water beating against me and the speed coursing through my veins, I felt a panic rise. I needed to get out of the shower, out of this room. What had happened and why was a mystery that didn’t need to be immediately solved; what needed to be solved was my presence in that house, with these people, in this weakened state.

  I reached up to the water knob and tried to pull myself to standing. The knob spun out of my grip and I fell back, even as the water turned to scalding. I writhed on the tiles, my skin being flayed by the heat, before scrabbling to my knees and pulling at the knob until the water shut off completely. I sat on my haunches for a moment, futilely trying to slow my breath and my heart.

  I pushed open the door and crawled out of the shower, and collapsed upon the tile, noticing only after a few desperate breaths that my clothes were in a heap by the toilet.

  When I staggered out of the bathroom, a mournful Detective Booth was waiting for me. My suit was creased, my shirt in tatters, my socks were somehow missing, but my cuff links, watch, and wallet were in the suit jacket, which surprised me a bit before I remembered that I had already signed for any charges the Chadwick Club chose to place upon my card.

  “This way please, Mr. Triplett,” said the detective, grabbing my arm as I tottered. “A car is waiting.”

  Now was not the time to give Detective Booth my spiel or to ask what crimes I might have committed under the influence of their drugs. Now was the time to get the hell out of there. So I silently let the detective pull me along the hallway, now empty of reveler and whore, down a back stairway, and out a rear door into the dying night, where a black limousine waited on a wide asphalt lot, its engine purring.

  As I started walking toward the car, the detective kept his grip on my arm. “You knew my name.”

  I turned and gave him a good look. His eyes were brown and as flat as a calculator. He was adding up something and I had a pretty good idea what it was.

  “You were pointed out to me,” I said.

  “By who?”

  “One of the club members. Rufus Davenport?”

  “Mr. Davenport is quite active.”

  “He said you were the man to see if I ever got into trouble.”

  “There’s blood on your right cuff.”

  I looked down. One dark splatter lay on the fold.

  “Who runs the club?”

  The detective let the slightest smile crease his mournful face. “I expect I’ll be seeing you again quite soon, Mr. Triplett.”

  I was a little dazed at just how conveniently this had worked out when the car’s driver stepped out from behind the wheel. He was beefy and tall, one of those steroid boys whose ears sprouted right from their necks, and I wondered for a moment if I recognized him. He opened the passenger door and stood there waiting. I staggered forward, thinking of the name Jojo or Robo, and slammed my head into the car roof. When I bent over in pain, I found myself facing the interior of the black car, where a man sat calmly on the rear-facing bench seat, a manila envelope resting on one thigh. His hair was short, his beard was trimmed tight, there was a gap between his two front teeth. I could feel the cold coming off him as he gave me his best approximation of a smile.

  “Tough night?” said Tom Preston.

  We sat across from each other in silence, Tom Preston and I, as the limousine prowled through the darkness. Where Bobo was driving us—I now recognized the driver as the hulk in Miami who had been lathering Cassandra with lotion—I had not a clue, but the silence wasn’t a surprise. What would we discuss? The weather? Our feelings? Would I make a little joke to put him at ease? Would he put a hand on my shoulder and look into my eyes and tell me he cared? Each possibility was an absurdity. We shared the same condition, that had been clear the moment he shattered Gordon’s leg, but instead of solidarity our brotherhood spurred a murderous rivalry. Cain and Cain. What do two sticks of wood talk about? Nothing, they just scrape one against the other until they combust.

  “You know I owe you,” said Tom Preston, finally, his marble eyes frosted with ice, his voice a calm piece of violence. “You might not have driven the car that whacked me in Miami, but you made me a target.”

  “It wasn’t personal.”

  He looked at me for a moment, his face creasing with bemusement before he laughed. Both of us understood that when it came to the two of us, nothing was personal, not even a private conversation. I had been surprised that he had spoken at all, but I knew immediately what it meant. He wanted something from me other than my demise, which was one thing more than I wanted from him.

  “We don’t need to be enemies,” said Tom Preston.

  “We sure as hell won’t be friends.”

  “Do you want a friend? I don’t want a friend. Who the hell ever needs a friend? I was given a goldfish when I was young. Swimmy the fish. He was going to be my friend. I thought I’d be a good boy and fill his bowl with fresh water from the tap. The next morning I found him floating. For some reason I kept buying a new Swimmy, ten at least, one at a time, a few pennies at the store, and filling his bowl with tap water. I seemed never to learn my lesson. Or maybe that was the lesson. Swimmy was my last friend. How did you find the Chadwick Club?”

  “Not especially amusing.”

  “You couldn’t te
ll by the photographs.” He lifted the manila envelope, slid out a stack of eight-by-tens, and cocked an eyebrow as he peered at the top photo. “Young breasts. They should name a tequila Young Breasts. Forget Jose Cuervo or Don Julio. Who wants to drink something named after an old Mexican dude? Call it Young Breasts and they’d make a mint. What was she, seventeen maybe?”

  “She said she was old enough.”

  “That always goes over in front of a judge. But from this it looks like it was worth the risk. And from this one, too. And . . . oh my.” He turned the photograph this way and that for effect and then flipped it to show me. “Is that even legal in Washington?”

  “It’s not only legal,” I said, “it’s mandatory.”

  Tom Preston laughed. “What a great town. I don’t think we could have done a better job of inventing a place for ourselves if we started from scratch. A town that runs on money, sex, and power is the town for the likes of you and me. Mr. Maambong told me of your strategy in our little contest down in Miami. He told me how you held back your true nature so as to maintain trust with the others. Mr. Maambong says that’s a restraint I need to learn. But he also told me there are things I can teach you. Like how to lose all restraint to get a job done right.”

  “I’m getting this job done right.”

  “By bringing in an old drunk lawyer to be your shill? By banging an alcoholic cop? By letting yourself get drugged by some baby-faced bartender? It’s weakness not to get straight to the heart of things. So let’s get to the heart of things.”

  He thumbed through his stack of photographs, found what he was looking for, and tossed it at me. It hit my chest and fell on the floor. I kept my eyes on him as I reached down to pick it up. I tried to keep my face stone as I examined it, a grainy black and white of me naked and passed out over a corpse, blood everywhere and a knife in my hand.