by Ray Garton
Of course, Bent could take it himself. He could see the headline:
LIBERACE WARNS WOMAN OF
IMMORALITY OF ORAL SEX
It did have a certain resonance to it, considering how the guy died. But, he had to ask himself if he really wanted to spend a few hours talking to a woman who'd gone cold to her husband because Liberace's mother was offended by blow jobs.
Then again, it was better than watching cops pull the sliced-up, rat-chewed bodies of murder victims out of a smelly tenement in New York, wasn't it? That was, after all, why he was working on the Global Inquisitor these days. Wasn't it?
"Look, Mr. Noble," Kotter said, leaning forward, suddenly concerned, "I don't want you to misunderstand me. I know what you must be thinkin' about all this. Prob'ly the same thing I been thinkin' ever since she told me about it. It's crazy, I know. B-but ... I really do love my wife, y'know. I mean, hell, we been married nearly twenty-two years. Got married right outta high school." A wistful smile crossed his face for just a moment. "Spent most of our lives together, y'know? Hell, even if Nattie never ... y'know, did that, that thing again, y'know, I'd still love her. That don't mean I wouldn't miss it, a'course. But, see," he went on, a little hesitant now, "Nattie's been, um ... well, she's not very well."
Thank god one of them realizes that, Bent thought as he said, "Oh? Well, I'm very sorry to hear that."
"No, I mean, not sick like dyin' sick. Sick like ... well, we could never afford the kinda doctors she needs, so ... well, I just keep hopin' it'll go away on its own, y'know? The messages from Liberace and her sittin' in that room lookin' at her pictures of Liberace, talkin' to herself...”
"She talks to herself?"
David looked embarrassed. "Well ... sometimes, yeah. But she's just ... well, she's not herself."
"I see," Bent said quietly with a nod.
"Really, Mr. Noble, you just gotta talk to her. If you want to, I mean. I wish you would. It'd mean a lot to Nattie. To me, too."
"I'm sure it would."
"I'd be glad to drive you out there and back if you'd like."
"Where do you live?"
"Well, we got a little trailer out past San Berdo? Y'know, San Bernardino? Out there in the desert? It's in the middle of nowhere, you wanna know the truth. It's kind of a long drive, but I'd be happy to take you."
Bent nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Okay, Mr. Kotter, I'll tell you what. Let me have a little chat with my editor, and, uh — " He checked his watch; it was only nine-forty " — it's early and I've got a pretty light day, so why don't we just head out and see your wife this morning?"
Kotter's face split into a large grin and he leaned forward and clutched the edge of Bent's desktop. "Really? "
I'm afraid so, Bent thought as he said with a smile, "Really."
Bent left Kotter in his office with a cup of coffee and a poppy-seed muffin, then headed down the corridor to the office of his editor, Bernie Fleck.
In the outer office, Fleck's secretary, Karen, looked up from the fax machine and gave him a big smile. She wore a bright red ribbed cotton knit dress that was, of course, too short and too tight, all the better to show off the full and curvy shape beneath it.
"Hi, Bent," she said, reaching up to lightly touch her auburn hair. "How's it going?"
"Much better now that I've seen you, Karen, my dear. Is our esteemed editor-in-chief on the premises?"
"No, he's on the phone."
"Fine." He gave her a smile and went into the office unannounced, where Fleck was just hanging up the telephone.
Bernie Fleck was a short, squat man, fifty-two, with a face that often reminded people of Edward G. Robinson, except it was gentler, softer, the face of a man who loved children, was respectful toward women, and who had a glimmer of romance in his small blue eyes. But, other than the resemblance to Edward G. Robinson, the people who thought that were all wrong, completely and entirely wrong.
"You know what that shriveled twat wants now?" Fleck grumbled. He had a tendency to talk quietly out of the left side of his mouth when he was angry, almost as if that side of his mouth had a fat, invisible cigar clenched in it tightly.
"Who?"
"How many shriveled twats you know?"
"Oh. Ms. Bergenstern." Barbara Bergenstern was the owner and publisher of the Global Inquisitor and had few, if any, friends among her employees.
"Who else?" He rubbed his hands together. There was an open bag of red pistachios on his desk and his meaty fingers were stained a light pink.
"What's she want?" Bent took a seat in front of the desk.
"Human interest," Fleck growled.
"Beg pardon?"
"Human interest, you believe that?" He ran his thick, pink-tipped fingers through his thinning light brown hair with the stripes of gray that were so symmetrical they almost looked fake.
"Well, uh ... you know, we deal in a lot of things here, Fleck, but the way I see it, very, very few of them are human interest. In fact, very few of them are, by any stretch of the imagination, related even vaguely to humanity. So. What's the deal?"
Fleck sighed and leaned back in his chair, which screeched like a banshee. He locked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "I'm not too sure yet, but it goes something like this. You see, Ms. Burgercunt seems to think that because the country is in such bad shape, what with the economy in the toilet and the crime rate going through the roof and new diseases spreading like melted butter and cities exploding with riots, see, she thinks that the readers of the Inquisitor want more uplifting stories, more happy stories."
"More human interest stories."
"Bingo. And Burgercunt thinks she's found one that'll be perfect, one that we can stretch out into a series of sweet little uplifting feel-good pieces that'll probably give the two of us diabetes before we're through."
"Us? We? Fleck, I'm not so sure I understand the relationship between those two words and this conversation."
"She wants you ... to write it."
"Ah. I see."
"She thinks with your past experience—the prestigious New York Times, and all — you'd be the best man for the job."
"Uh-huh. Yeah."
"She wants to have a meeting about it this afternoon. She wants you to be there. And remember, she won't be asking you to do this story. This'll be a telling kind of a thing, if you know what I mean. Like a command performance."
"Well. I'm touched. In fact, I'm underwhelmed." He grinned and cocked his head. "I don't even know what the story is yet and already I can feel my scrotum shrinking."
"You want to know what the story is? Doesn't seem to be anything uplifting about it, you ask me, but she has her own way of thinking. It's a — "
"Don't have time."
"What? Huh?"
"I'm on my way out."
"Where you going?"
"I've got a story. I'm hot on the trail of a woman who's been getting messages from Liberace."
Fleck leaned forward and his chair screeched again. "What kinda messages?"
"That she should stop giving her husband head because it offends his mother. Liberace's mother, that is."
"A Liberace story. Elvis stories're a dime a dozen, but ... Liberace. Well, what the hell're you waiting for? She could have a stroke! She could choke to death on a sandwich! Get over there and get the story, dammit! Just make sure your ass is back here by four o'clock. What'm I saying — by three-thirty! Burgercunt wants this meeting at four and if I have to listen to her bitch at me anymore, about anything, I might kill her, and your absence would make you an accomplice, got it?"
"Got it," Bent said, standing. "But it'll be a long trip. Just wanted to make sure you thought it was worth looking into."
"Worth looking into? At least half our readers are women over fifty-five who still think all that business about Liberace being a homosexual was a Communist plot! They still adore the son of a bitch, and unlike all those fat, sweaty, fried pork rind-eating Elvis fans out there, they have been deprived!" he shouted,
stabbing a stiff index finger into the air. "This'll be a cover headline, you dink, where the hell's your head! This is news! You go to this woman right now, and if you have to kiss her feet and clean her house to get that story, you do it!"
He stood up. "Just make sure you're back here by four or I'll eat your lungs," Fleck said quietly.
"No problem," Bent said. "It's early." Bent smiled.
Fleck scowled and waved him out of the room.
2
It was a long drive in the battered old Chevy pickup.
At first, Kotter talked a lot about construction, but he seemed to realize, after a while, that it just wasn't a topic on which Bent was able to converse, so he changed the subject to Bent's work.
"Y'know, I read that story you wrote about that kid who had a live lizard growin' out of his chest."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. Nattie liked it and she showed it to me, so I read it. But ... I gotta question. Y'know that picture? Of that kid with that lizard comin' outta his chest? That wasn't real, was it?"
Bent turned to him with eyebrows curled in an expression of crushed disappointment. "Wasn't real? What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean, you touched that picture up, right? You did somethin' to it so it'd have that lizard comin' outta that kid's chest, right? Some kinda trick photography?"
Bent's eyes widened in hurt disbelief. He spoke in a soft, breathy voice. "I didn't get anywhere near that picture! You're saying ... I mean, you think ... you really think that I'd lie about a ... I'm a journalist. I've written for The New York Times, for crying out loud! I've been nominated for awards! You think that I would — "
"Oh, Mr. Noble, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest a thing like that! All I was sayin' was, was, was that it was such a weird story, y'know? It was so ... well, hard to believe, a kid with a lizard growin' out of his chest, I mean, that's damned strange ... if you'll excuse my French."
"Oh, well, if that's all you're saying ... yes, I understand. Sometimes I have a hard time believing the stories I write myself. This world is full of strange things, Mr. Kotter, things very few people ever see ... and seldom believe. This world is filled with things so strange that the phrase 'truth is stranger than fiction' becomes an understatement at best."
"Y'know, Mr. Noble, you can call me David."
"Only if you call me Bent. Every time you say Mr. Noble, I keep looking around for my dad."
Kotter laughed. "You're okay. Y'know that, Mr. — I mean, Bent? You really are okay."
Bent smiled. "I sure hope so. There are days when I have my doubts."
They drove for what seemed a very long time along I-10 and then into the stark, flat desert, where only the occasional run-down gas station, convenience store, or sterile, styleless motel swept by at the edge of the freeway.
It was, in fact, a longer drive than Bent had expected. At least, it seemed to be. In any case, it was way out in the desert, and Bent began to wonder about whether or not he'd get back to the office in time for the meeting.
"Uh, when we get there ... well, you'll hafta excuse the place," Kotter said quietly some time after he'd left the freeway and headed into the desert on a narrow, cracked, and bumpy road that twisted through the barren landscape like an aged, battered snake.
Bent spotted it some distance ahead of them. A small, battered trailer was planted in the desert just beyond a run-down-looking gas station with a faded wooden sign that read:
TEX'S FILL-ER-UP
GAS—SNACKS—DRINKS
"I haven't been able to find work for a long time," Kotter went on. "Things've been pretty tough. We had a house, but we had to give it up. It was a rental, y'know, I mean, we didn't own it, or anything, but we couldn't even afford the rent. So we got holda this trailer and I had this friend, see, the guy who owns this gas station, Tex. Went to high school with him. He owns this little spot of land up here, so he let us park the trailer on it till I could find something to support us and we could get a place again. There's no electricity so, at night, we have to use Coleman lanterns. We got propane for cooking and for heat. We keep our meat next door in Tex's freezer, and we got a big Igloo cooler to keep a few perishables and soft drinks cold. It's kinda rough, not near like having our house back, a'course, but ... well — " He chuckled. " — it's a little like camping, so that kinda takes the edge off, if y'know what I mean. Makes it a little ... well, fun. Even though sometimes ... it's not." He forced a chuckle.
"I'm sorry to hear things have been so rough, David," Bent said with genuine compassion. "I've been there myself, so I know what you're talking about. These days, a lot of people are there, so you're not alone."
Kotter nodded bitterly as he turned off the road and parked in front of the trailer. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Things ain't exactly a carnival out there these days." He chuckled coldly. "The land of opportunity, huh?"
"You're lucky to have a friend who's willing to help you out. At least you're not living in a cardboard box on the street."
He killed the engine and they got out.
Bent had a tape recorder slung over one shoulder and, although he wasn't sure he'd need it, a camera slung over the other, as well as a small notebook and a pen in the inside breast pocket of his sportcoat.
Their feet crunched over the hard, dry earth and Bent stood with the pickup door open, taking a moment to stretch his shoulders back and yawn after the long drive. He looked around and saw the hot sun beating down on a whole lot of nothing.
The gas station looked pretty old and obviously had not been kept up; what appeared to be small living quarters had been added onto the back of the store that had a broken neon Coors sign in the front window. Half of the rectangular shelter over the gas island was gone. The pumps looked dirty and Bent had a hard time believing they worked.
Other than the gas station and the trailer, there was only the desert and that narrow, pocked road that continued into oblivion.
He closed the car door and joined Kotter on the way to the trailer.
It was an old beat-up aluminum Airstream trailer, shaped sort of like a bullet and covered with dents and scrapes. A layer of dust clung to it like a thin skin; even the small windows — each of them with a blanket or towel hanging over it on the inside instead of curtains — were dirty, and the window on the door had a broad strip of silver duct tape placed diagonally from a top corner of the dusty glass to a bottom, perhaps covering a crack in the pane.
"If you'll s'cuse me just a second," Kotter said, "I'll go inside and just make sure, y'know, she's decent, and everything."
"Sure. No problem."
The door squeaked when it was opened and closed and the small trailer wobbled a bit, creaking as Kotter went inside and walked around.
Bent felt a little ache in his chest for them. In fact, it was for himself as well, because seeing a couple living like this reminded him of his poor days, when he and Camille — Cami, he'd called her — were living in something that resembled a graham cracker box more than an apartment, when paying bills was a juggling act and buying groceries was at the bottom of the list of priorities, so their meals had been made up of a lot of soup and beans.
Most of all, it made him hurt because it made him think of Cami. He'd worked hard to stop doing that — in fact, he'd worked hard at it for years — and he didn't like the fact that something could still come up that would make him fall back into doing it again.
The trailer door opened, jarring Bent from his thoughts and wiping from his face the dark frown that had grown there. Kotter smiled and beckoned for him to come in.
Bent went up the single metal step with a loud creak and into the trailer, which was cramped and dim and filled with the greasy smell of recently cooked meat.
There was hurried movement at the other end of the trailer.
"She's comin'," Kotter said. "Why don't you have a seat?" He motioned toward the small sofa that sagged in the middle and had a tattered brown blanket over it. A spring complained as Bent seated himself at one end of the sofa
and it pressed hard against his ass. As he put his camera and recorder on the sofa beside him, he noticed three stacks of back issues of the Global Inquisitor beneath a tiny, scuffed-up coffee table. They hadn't exactly been expecting him, so he suspected those stacks were always there, continued to grow and were probably moved to other parts of the trailer so they wouldn't take up so much space in the boxlike living room. Did this woman really buy the Inquisitor with such regularity when they were so obviously short of money?
Bent swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the hot lump of guilt that was rising in his esophagus.
On the wall across from him, Bent noticed a burl wood clock with Liberace's smiling, squinting face set beneath the hands and numbers; at the other end of the sofa, on a little table, he saw a little lamp made up of a small black piano with a candelabra set on top at which there was seated a small replica of Liberace, hands poised over the keys, so detailed that Bent could see the gaudy, oversize rings on the pianist's fingers. Bent's eyebrows rose high and he pressed his lips together hard as he sighed very quietly.
"Would you like something to drink?" Kotter asked a bit nervously. "We got some cola and coffee — just instant, I'm afraid."
Bent really didn't want anything, but how could he turn down such an eager, almost childlike offer.
"Uh, sure. How about, let's see ... a Coke."
"Well ... it's just a cola ... sort of."
"Fine."
"We've only got some old mugs to drink out of ... or would you rather just drink it out of the can?"
"The can's fine."
Kotter turned and clumped into the kitchen, then returned with his head sagging just a little, as if he were ashamed. In his hand was a white can that read on the side, in black letters, simply cola.