The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  What about her?

  She’s got to know something.

  Look, Henry. Domino’s as much a victim in all this as anyone. I don’t care how evil you think she is.

  But it doesn’t add up. She—

  That avenue is closed, Henry. It’s closed even to me. Domino and I have an agreement not to see each other anymore. It’s too painful for both of us.

  Now what’s that supposed to mean? Were you in on it, too?

  Paranoia will get you everywhere.

  I’m going to talk to Domino.

  That’s better. It’s better to be confronted with your failures at every turn. You’ll see. Tell me what she smells like these days . . .

  Why?

  Why what?

  Why don’t you care about Africa?

  I’ll bet you just wish you had the guts to punch me, don’t you? But you’re afraid you might lose information.

  Tyler, feeling almost unbearably disgraced and humiliated, burst out: Whatever you and I talk about, and it’s been this way every goddamned time, I always have the feeling that it’s useless . . .

  As it is. And you know why? Because you’re useless. You remember when I told you that I could see from your mouth that you like to go down on women? Well, now let’s talk about your teeth, Henry, your lying, grinning teeth. You lie through your teeth, you know that? If you ever said anything straight and honest it would choke you coming out of your crooked soul. —And Smooth, fixing his blinking, bleary eyes on him as best he could, brought his face closer and closer until Tyler was trapped in the stench of his breath and cried out: Now you’re just goading me again—for nothing. And you always tell me I don’t like you, and you do everything you can to make that true.

  At least I got you off the topic of the Queen, so grin and bear it. But you’re avoiding the issue, because in addition to your envious ears and your lying teeth you have a coward’s heart. Have another shot, said Smooth, refilling his own glass first. —There’s ice in the freezer. I accuse you, Henry Tyler. I accuse you of letting down everyone you ever loved or had a tie to, of failing the Queen, betraying your brother, seducing and torturing your sister-in-law, neglecting your mother, rejecting Domino—oh, I could go on and on. The one thing I’ll say for you is that you’ve run your little business into the ground; that shows some integrity. You see, Henry, if I could get you angry then you wouldn’t be sad about other trifling points. Isn’t that how it works? Or are you a man like me who can be angry and sad at the same time?

  And whom didn’t you let down, Dan?

  Oh, almost nobody. You, Domino and the Queen, I suppose. I like to believe I never let you down, Henry. So don’t start kvetching and asserting that I’m letting you down now. All this has a higher purpose.

  I don’t get it. I mean, I—

  Know what those FBI turds told me? Let’s say you have your dick up some eight-year-old boy’s ass and it slips out. You know, accidents happen. And so you put it back in and . . . Well, that’s an additional felony count right there, even though you hadn’t even finished. Can you get that?

  Dan, when you talk that way you’re just smearing yourself with filth. It’s as if you—

  So I’m letting you down.

  It has nothing to do with letting me down. I’m trying to tell you not to—

  And you think, and the FBI thinks, and everybody except the Queen thinks that I let those kids down. Well, did I?

  Can we just for one minute make this about the Queen and not about you and me?

  Isn’t this a religious experience, Henry? Can’t you see God in my shit? And you know what makes you so dishonest? God’s speaking now, so you’d better listen. I’m telling you loud and clear, boy, that the reason you’ve let everyone down is because you can only love completely what you don’t have.

  Tyler was silent.

  You had her! You had her and she loved you!

  I had whom?

  Why didn’t you kill yourself? Then you could have been with Irene, at least. Maybe if you hurry up and do it you can still catch up with the Queen before she turns into fog—

  Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, Tyler muttered.

  You’ll never do it. She told you to travel, so you’ll travel. I’ll do it long before you.

  You know as little as I do, said Tyler, how all this will end.

  | 508 |

  Through interviews with former friends, associates and intimates, [CENSORED] learned of numerous allegations that Smooth had had sexual relations with boys and girls younger than 16 years of age, including oral, vaginal and rectal penetration. These allegations would later arise in the Bureau’s affidavit in support of the search and arrest warrants.

  | 509 |

  He wandered into the public defender’s office on Seventh Street and waited behind the counter, staring at the wall inset with a window made of pigeonholes, some empty, some overstuffed with swollen folders. —What’s it on for tomorrow? Your case I mean, the receptionist was saying to a sad defendant. —Department Eighteen, the defendant said. —All right then. —The defendant cleared his throat. —You don’t have a message for me, do you? he asked so sadly. —No sir. And what can I do for you, sir?

  I’m looking for a lady named Africa Johnston, Tyler said wearily. I was wondering if she . . . Oh, forget it.

  | 510 |

  He knew that the ringleaders of Domino’s crew didn’t go to the Wonderbar anymore after what had happened between the old Queen and Heavyset (oh, so you saw that tall nigger called Justin? the owner remarked to Tyler one afternoon. On account of what he did to me, there’s a warrant out for his arrest! and Tyler felt almost shocked at the vicious self-satisfaction which shone from Heavyset’s face), but one day he spied Domino, dressed from head to toe in glittering silver, drinking alone at the bar at the Naked Eye on Mason Street, on her face a strange, haughtily dreamy expression, as if she were so far lost now that she could barely find her way back to herself; while in the padded lounge-nooks behind her sat three or four of her prostitutes, solemn and anxious.

  Well, she said drily.

  How’s everything, Dom?

  The streets belong to me, the blonde said pompously. She sighed and said: Only thing is, I don’t want ’em.

  Well, what do you want?

  Good pussy, drawled the blonde, and the other whores clapped their hands over their mouths and laughed.

  Domino, he said, please, do you know where the Qu—I mean, where Africa is?

  Fuck, that’s just her trick name, said Domino. How can I keep track of some other bitch’s trick names?

  I love her. I’m looking for her. That’s all.

  Yeah, well what do I care about your love? What good’s it do me?

  If I got some money together would you—

  A grand’ll work, laughed Domino (and the other whores giggled and whispered: Did you hear what she said to Henry?). Until then I don’t want you talking to me. I don’t want you even coming around.

  If I’m going to scrape up a grand for you, I need some proof that what you’ll tell me is worthwhile.

  I don’t give a fuck for proof! the blonde snarled. I don’t care if you come back or not.

  You must have altered your money-loving ways then, he said. Or maybe you just don’t know anything.

  Look, she said. I used to like you okay. You always treated me like an equal. Henry, listen to me. That bitch is dead. And I don’t want you ever, ever to mention her in front of me again. And I don’t want to ever see your face again. I can’t stand to even look at you.I. . .

  Then she slammed her face into her hands and sat there, rocking and trembling, until he was safely gone.

  | 511 |

  In the upper Tenderloin, before the Aloha Spa (Oriental Massage & Sauna), with its painted green palm trees on yellow, he asked two cute black whores from Oakland: You know Africa?

  Darkskinned? Oh, her! Used to be the Queen. Yeah, yeah!

  She got killed?

  She got killed.
r />   Are you sure?

  You mind standing away from the door? one of the whores said.

  You mind standing a little closer to the door? Tyler said politely.

  He half expected to get screamed at or punched, but the whore, whose sarcasm detector had a dead battery, obligingly moved closer to the door. He then felt impelled to honor his end of the bargain.

  Yeah, the other whore said. That Maj you be talkin’ about, she got offed by a runaway car. You know, a hit-and-run. I saw the blood in the street . . .

  Uh-uh, the first whore said. She got some kinda growth tumor in her eye and it formed into cancer. I saw it for myself.

  | 512 |

  When you take a street whore into your car, you actually carry two passengers—a woman and her addiction.

  Excuse me, but I don’t really know you, the whore said. I don’t like your face. You make me nervous.

  Well, I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not, Tyler said.

  It ain’t no compliment, the whore said. You got an evil face. You look like an axe murderer.

  All right, then, it’s not a compliment, he said. Where do we go from here? You want to get out of the car? I can let you off here.

  In this rain? the whore said. I’m soaked and you want me to go back into the rain? Can’t you see how wet my pants are? And I swear I ain’t pissed my pants; it’s the rain.

  It happens sometimes, said Tyler.

  How much you gonna gimme?

  Nothing. I’m doing the Queen a favor, is all. You just got of jail and I’m driving you home to her. That is, if you want to go home.

  Ain’t no Queen no more. Don’t you know that?

  I don’t believe it. Anyway, Domino’s the new Queen, didn’t you hear?

  Oh, her, the whore sneered.

  Who told you the Queen’s dead?

  Everybody knows it.

  Has anyone seen her dead?

  Of course not, ’cause they burned her body. They destroyed the evidence. That’s what they always do.

  So no one you know has actually seen her dead, Tyler pursued.

  I think you ought to give me some money because it’s my first time, the whore said.

  Your first time what?

  My first time with you.

  So that’s what you think, is it?

  Yes it is.

  Well, you can think whatever you want, said Tyler. He’d given up trying to ask her anything.

  I’m tellin’ you, I’m broke, the girl said.

  By now the car stank of her, the smell of unwashed flesh, dirty socks, excrement and wet clothes.

  So you want me to drive you to Capp Street or not? he said.

  You wanna drive me up to Market Street first so I can get me some french fries and a burger? I’m hungry.

  I don’t have time right now, sweetheart, he said. But I’ll take you to Domino if you want.

  You won’t buy me a burger? It won’t take but five seconds. We can go through the drive-through lane. Turn here. I said take a right here. You missed it. What’s your fucking problem? Now go back and make that turn. I tole you I’m hungry.

  Tyler, glancing for a moment into her scared and angry eyes, understood that she had been recently raped.

  | 513 |

  That was about the time that he gave up trying to make his car payments. It was the anniversary of his mother’s death. He continued to make inquiries about the Queen, even though the weary silences and insistent avowals of others conspired to uproot the last feebly growing shoots of his hopes. Everybody acted as though he were forcing the issue. He thought to himself: Why shouldn’t it be forced? I’m just disappointed that Smooth is too much of a mess to follow this through . . . —He was already two months late on his rent, and just as the heads of old locomotives sometimes resemble praying mantis heads or the beaked helmets of robot angels, so his landlord’s face came in his dreams to assume a strangely metallic appearance because Tyler was afraid of him and hated himself, hence deserved to be a mantis’s prey and he could not hide from fate the way that John and Celia could when they attended foggy windy Sundays of street fairs less festive than commercial: booths selling, or trying to sell, robot T-shirts, custom-made wine corks, earrings which resembled fishing lures, elaborate bongs with carven faces inset with colored glass . . . But he was still chasing, still hunting. He showed everyone photographs of his Queen.

  | 514 |

  He saw the tall man one Sunday morning in Berkeley when he was buying a ticket to be sped underneath the Bay to San Francisco. Sliding in three successive bills for a $2.45 fare to Sixteenth and Mission, Tyler clicked on the downward-pointing blue arrow to reduce the value of his investment by five-cent increments. When the coins came clattering back out, the tall man approached him with a murky gaze and said: You got twenny-five cents?

  Sure, Justin, said Tyler. Why the hell not?

  He gave the tall man a quarter.

  Where’s the Queen, Justin?

  What’s the use?

  I visited Strawberry up in Rio Consumnes.

  What’s the difference?

  Where you headed? said Tyler then in a conversational way.

  I can’t say, said the tall man. No place good.

  Well, I hope your return trip is better.

  It won’t be, said the tall man.

  All right, said Tyler, wearily narrowing his eyes. I get it.

  I can’t handle it, the tall man said. I still be thinkin’ about it. Now beat it. I don’t wanna never talk with you no more.

  Tyler waved sunnily and went through the turnstile. When he turned, he saw the tall man mouthing and re-mouthing the words Just twenny-five cents more while turning away from the ticket machine, into which of course he had delivered no coins, and he began to walk upstairs. He saw Tyler looking at him and said with what might have been ironic servility: Hey, thanks, bro. Gonna get me a forty double up . . .

  Tyler went downstairs to the tracks, angry and saddened.

  | 515 |

  You never call me or talk to me, an arch teenage voice was saying on Dan Smooth’s answering machine. I gave up on you long ago.

  The FBI tracked the originating telephone number and extended the investigation.

  | 516 |

  [CENSORED] It is clear that Smooth sexually abused minor males and females at the Q Street compound, in addition to having consensual sexual relations with several adult females (misdemeanor counts of prostitution). A number of Smooth’s former friends provided affidavits detailing these sexual relations, including the sexual abuse involving [CENSORED]. [CENSORED], an employee of the Children’s Protective Services Agency, provided the Bureau with a cassette tape of an interview she conducted with a child named Sapph [CENSORED] who repeatedly visited the Q Street compound. This child detailed an incident of sexual abuse involving three counts of oral copulation with a minor and [CENSORED]. This child testified about her experience at the [CENSORED]. Also, during conversation between an informant and Henry Tyler during the week of December 21, Tyler admitted that he knew of Smooth’s sexual abuse of this minor female. The Bureau’s behavioral expert [CENSORED], in a December 2 memoranda to the Bureau, opined that “Smooth may continue to make sexual use of any minor male or female children whom he can lure into the compound.”

  | 517 |

  That’s very very interesting, he muttered, switching on his computer. That’s where the death records would be kept . . .

  He stared at the screen for a very long time without doing a search. Then he switched the computer off.

  | 518 |

  Tyler was at the Wonderbar getting drunk. All the barmaids he knew had gotten fired. There weren’t any girls inside.

  Have you seen my little streetbird? asked old Jack, clutching at Tyler’s shoulder despairingly.

  Which one is she again?

  You know her. She’s the most beautiful one of all—you know, the one who . . .

  The old drunk in the cowboy hat interrupted them, shouting: Hey!
Hey! Hey! until everyone looked up. —I was in this little old bar in the Ozarks and this gal six foot seven named Sal, she taught me how to jitterbug. Hey! Pay attention! I seen bar fights. I seen ’em. I seen everything.

  Yeah, I get it, Tyler said to Jack. But what does she look like?

  Some days she says she’s eighty-five percent Sioux Indian and fifteen percent black. Other days she’s fifty percent Indian and fifty percent Irish. I say she’s fifty percent liar. But I don’t care. She’s my streetbird.

  I’m trying to find somebody myself just now. I really don’t have all day. You mean Strawberry? I know where she is. You mean Domino?

  Strawberry? said Jack in confusion (and ordinarily Jack, that piercing-eyed yet half-blind old ex-welder who sucked his wrinkled cheeks in against his skull whenever he looked a man up and down, was as quick to generalize as the Cantino map of 1502, which, showing parrots on Brazilian coast, named that entire country the Land of Parrots). Well, I don’t rightly . . . Strawberry! Yeah. That’s her. But to me, you know, she’s just my little streetbird. You should see her when shes flying high—Henry, you know what I mean—and then she’s happy and beautiful it just breaks my heart. There are times when I’d give her everything, and I have. Yes I have. And that girl doesn’t give a damn for me. Well, none of ’em care anyhow. You know that. Don’t you know that? They’ll just say whatever to get all they can out of you. They’re so ruthless—why, they’d set you up to be killed if it would benefit ’em for five minutes. Goddamned whores. But I don’t care. I don’t care, and now I can’t find her.

  Strawberry’s in jail, said Tyler. I’ve got to go.

  Strawberry? What do you mean Strawberry? Now her name comes back to me. It was Lily! You’ve got to help me, Henry, because Lily’s the one I love. Lily’s my—