High Life

by Matthew Stokoe

  “Of course not, but I’m in a vulnerable position, my work with the homeless might be misinterpreted.”

  “Did something happen with her that would involve the police?”

  “What do you mean?” Bella’s tone was sharp and for a moment her eyes narrowed.

  “Nothing. I’m just wondering how he connected you.”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know what reason he has to ask about her. She left after her operation and I never saw her again. Is that clear enough?”

  “I was only asking … What about the other thing? Why would he want to know about your qualifications?”

  Bella moved away from the window and sat down.

  “I can only think he knows something about my operations. The question is whether this is going to evolve into another blackmail demand, or whether, if he is a policeman, it’s part of a genuine investigation.”

  “It’ll be him on his own.”

  “You seem very certain.”

  “I don’t think you realize the effect you have on him. He wants you, I can see it in his face. He wants to fuck you and he wants your money. You were crazy to bring sex into it.”

  “If he’s acting alone it’s the best thing I could have done.”

  “Jesus Christ—”

  Bella cut me off impatiently.

  “You say he wants to get his hooks into me. Well, all right, let him think that’s what he’s doing. I may not know everything about him, but I know what kind of man he is, and sex with me will make him a slave. Given time, whatever he thinks he has on me will be useless to him, because he won’t have the will to use it.”

  PCH at sixty miles an hour. Top down, wind in my hair, sun scattered across the ocean in drifts of golden petals. Fine fabric, perfectly cut, against my skin, the crystal of my watch catching the light, turning to a disc of mirror that somehow took all my Californian dreams from the air about me and held them there on my wrist so I could see them. The money in my English calf-skin wallet, the spending potential behind my credit cards—a financial virility translating into feelings of physical well-being as I headed north for no other reason than to delight in these things.

  That morning it felt necessary, like it might be the last chance I’d get to indulge myself before the shit came down, the last chance to be willfully blind for a few hours.

  A fast car along the edge of the ocean. If I’d had a blonde beside me I could have been in a movie. I wished I had a camera set up on the hood. That way I’d be able to watch myself and see if I matched my possessions. It was an important thing to know. I had a small amount of recognition and a reasonable level of disposable income, but 28 FPS ran too late at night and in too limited an area to attract an audience large enough to generate fame on a Friends or Melrose Place level. As a result I hadn’t yet reached a point where I could define myself by other people’s perceptions of me. Next to Bruce Willis or Brad Pitt I was nothing. Even guys like Judd Nelson were a million miles ahead of me, safe with their lives already hacked into the fabric of Hollywood, their fans, their agents, the waiters and producers who told them endlessly they were better than anyone else in the world.

  I started to toy with the idea of stopping somewhere to get a handi-cam to balance on the dash, but then a gray Plymouth closed in behind me and flashed its lights and I forgot all about recording myself.

  No point trying to run, he could find me any time he wanted. I drove for another half mile just to piss him off, then pulled into an overlook that had been built on a short spur of cliff about fifty feet above the sea. I got out, stood against the guardrail, and waited for what was coming with an unlit cigarette in my mouth.

  Ryan heaved himself out of his car like a fat woman, twisting sideways first to swing his feet out. I didn’t bother trying to read his expression, whatever it was it wouldn’t mean anything good.

  “Oh, I love the sea, don’t you?”

  He leaned on his elbows next to me and gazed off across the ocean. His stomach hung under him like a sack of grain.

  “Bet you been thinking about me, haven’t you? Bet you been replaying that scene at Beauty’s place, me blasting all over your ass. I say it myself, I carry quite a wad.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, it ain’t much compared to what you’re into, right? Speaking of which, I set you up a little treat down at the morgue.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the real thing. Cold and laid out.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. The thought of getting close to a dead body changed the whole world around me. It dragged me out of the sunshine dream I’d wrapped myself with on the highway, back into a dark place of murder and desires I didn’t understand. Ryan put on a cheesy grin.

  “Yeah, I thought it was the least I could do considering you got such shitty friends.”

  “Huh?”

  “Old Rexy.”

  My guts went cold. I lit my cigarette.

  “You know what’s coming, don’t you, Jackie boy?”

  “You want another payment for the motel thing.”

  Ryan snorted. “I guess you had to try. No, this ain’t about that poor bastard. Don’t you know you can’t trust a junkie?”

  “Get on with it.”

  “You’re not enjoying this? Gee, I am. Okay, Rex had my number. A couple of days ago he used it. He had something to sell, and after I saw it I was happy to buy. I bet you could take a real good guess what it was.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “No? A tape of our two favorite girlfriends pleasuring each other. Only about ten minutes long but, boy, does it sizzle. Don’t bother looking vacant, Rex told me where he got it. You know what it means, don’t you?”

  “So they knew each other, big deal. Karen was a whore and Bella likes sex. It’s not impossible they met.”

  “But you and I know it ain’t as simple as that. That tape proves a sexual connection between a murder victim and a woman whose behavior is suspect, to say the least. A connection you didn’t want me to know about. Why was that, Jackie?”

  “Just because Bella was fucking her doesn’t mean she killed her.”

  “Surgical-type wounds, professional evisceration, a sexual link. It isn’t what I’d call tenuous. And then there’s you—another connection between them. You know, Jackie, you oughta be more helpful. It don’t take much of a leap to put you and this doctor cunt together in a plan. Maybe that’s why you didn’t let on about the tape.”

  “The first time I met Bella was when some faggot trick took me to a party in Bel Air. Two months after Karen was killed. And the reason I didn’t tell you about the tape was because I knew you’d jump to some bullshit like this.”

  “You say she didn’t do it?”

  “Of course she didn’t. She was in love with Karen.”

  Ryan looked measuringly at me. “I know about the operations.”

  “Operations?”

  “Don’t act dumb, I wouldn’t want to get pissed off on such a nice day. When I saw the tape I thought it might be worthwhile checking out your movements after Karen died a little more thoroughly. Remember that bar on Pico, the Egyptian place? The night you thought it’d be so much fun to try and lose me? I went back there and spoke to a guy called Joey. Man, you think you know L.A.” Ryan laughed and shook his head. “So, we got this Joey in a secret clinic somewhere selling off one of his kidneys. It’s a bummer the doctor was antsy about being identified and wore a mask and a gown all the time or we could be a whole lot more certain about things. But we got a couple of pointers. On account of him having sex with her, Joey was pretty sure it was a woman. Ain’t that a kick? Just like Bella. Plus, those gowns do up down the back and Joey couldn’t be completely sure, because there wasn’t much of a gap, but he thought maybe she had a tattoo there, something all black.”

  “Bullshit. You’re making it up.”

  “Now why would you say that, Jackie?”

  “He didn’t know anything about a tatto
o.”

  “Just ’cause he didn’t tell you, don’t mean he didn’t know. You gotta learn to be more forceful, boy. ’Course I can understand you getting upset because, correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t I catch a flash of something on Bella’s back when you fucked her the other day? What was that, exactly?”

  “You got me.”

  “You telling me you’ve been fucking her all this time and you haven’t seen anything there? I’m going to find out sooner or later. You might as well spare yourself some grief.”

  “Okay, she’s got a tattoo, so what?”

  “I didn’t get much of a look, describe it for me.”

  “I don’t know, some kind of beetle or something.”

  “Wouldn’t be an Egyptian kind of beetle, would it? Like Karen had?”

  Ryan started to laugh, deep belly chuckles like he was immensely pleased with himself. It took him a while to quiet down.

  “Okay, Jackie … Here’s how it looks to me. You ready? Okay, you tell me that first off Karen went away for a coupla weeks, long enough to have her kidney cut out, I’d say. Then she turns up flashing way more cash than she could have got hooking—shit, she even bought you a car. Add that little scene with her and Bella on the tape and the picture draws itself. Bella’s a doctor, she’s fucking Karen. Karen wants some extra cash. Bella knows a way—how am I doing?”

  “You’re fucking insane.”

  “You better hope I’m not, ’cause the stuff Joey told me you asked him is the only indication I got that maybe you weren’t involved in the murder. See, those kinda questions, one way to figure it is you were out looking for the killer. Now, are you going to level with me about Beauty, or not?”

  “All right, all right … Karen did sell her kidney, it’s true. When she came back to my place she’d already had it done—that’s what we argued about the last time I saw her. And Bella did the operation, yes. But that doesn’t mean she killed her.”

  “That’s better.”

  “It doesn’t mean she killed her, Ryan.”

  “Could point to it, though. Karen’s sexing up to Bella and Bella with all that money—maybe after you and her had your tiff she went back to the honey pot once too often. Shit, when it came to money she wasn’t what you’d call shy. Could be she decided her kidney was worth more than she got. Maybe Bella didn’t see it that way and did something about it.”

  “She’s trying to help people. She pays for the kidneys herself and donates them to welfare hospitals. Is that the sort of person who kills someone?”

  “Whatever she’s into, it ain’t helping people. I checked her out, Jackie. She ain’t a surgeon. She’s a doctor, okay, but that’s all. She’s got no more right to do those kind of operations than you or me. What does that say to you?”

  “That she’s really clever?”

  “She’s a fucking psycho. She enjoys cutting people open. Could easily be she just went a teensy bit too far one day.”

  “Couldn’t happen. She doesn’t do the operations by herself. Her father helps her, and he is a surgeon.”

  “Was. Doesn’t mean anything. The operation was done before Karen was killed. You said so yourself.”

  “What about the spunk? Bit difficult for Bella to come up with that.”

  “The come don’t necessarily mean anything. Could be someone wanked into the body after it was dumped. Could be a million explanations. By itself it don’t rule her out.”

  “But it could mean someone else was involved.”

  “I just bet you got a suggestion.”

  “Her father.”

  “I don’t like that suggestion.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t like it? The guy’s a junkie.”

  “It’s been fifty years since you could hang a murder rap on someone just because they like to unwind with something stronger than booze. Don’t get simple on me, Jackie.”

  “He’s got a major sex thing going on with Bella. I’m telling you, he could easily have killed Karen in a fit of jealousy over it. He cuts open dogs when he gets pissed off. I’ve seen him do it, exactly the same as Karen was.”

  “I got Bella doing the operation illegally—which, by the way, I wasn’t sure of until you told me, ’cause Joey never actually saw who did the cutting. I got similar tattoos and I got a tape of them having some girlie fun. I got nothing between Karen and this guy Powell except what you say. And forgive me, Jackie, but you got what we call in the business a vested interest.”

  “But if he’s involved in the kidney thing too, it could just as easily be him.”

  “It wasn’t him in that motel room stopping some guy’s heart.”

  Ryan shoved himself away from the rail and headed for his car.

  “Come on, I want to give you this present. Things have been working out pretty good since you and me hooked up. I want to show my appreciation.”

  I didn’t move right away. I watched some gulls circling over a patch of water and thought about Lorn. All I wanted at that moment was to be with her in a big bed, in a room filled with sun, the world shut outside and the smooth whispering of our skin against each other drowning out the shit Ryan kept forcing me to listen to.

  “You don’t want to miss out on this, Jackie, believe me.”

  But I also knew I couldn’t turn down what he was offering.

  The sun, the water, and the blue air all turned to dust on the way to Santa Monica. I followed Ryan’s Plymouth south down PCH and prayed for it to get totaled by a truck.

  * * *

  Euclid Street. Memories of Karen on a slab. It seemed like a long time ago, but then a lot of things had happened.

  The sun was low in the sky as we arrived and the haggard palms made long diagonal shadows across the concrete of the road. We went in the same way as before, down the side ramp. The front office was shut anyhow. Ryan was acting like a guy playing Santa Claus.

  The body room hadn’t changed—same fluoro light, same coolant hissing in the same pipes, same TV babble from the attendant’s room. A place out of time, a place where the temperature and the cool motionless air never changed, no matter how many days went by outside.

  Ryan whistled and the Japanese guy shambled out to meet us. He looked pleased to see Ryan.

  “You got her ready? My friend here’s kinda anxious to start.”

  “Sure. She all ready out back. One sweet honey. Say twenny-five, look real nice. Big tits, but she got a lot of hair on her pussy. I have to shave her first, but you western guys maybe different. Anyhow, still plenty fresh. Rigor all gone. Mouth nice and clean so you can kiss her too if you want.”

  Ryan handed over a thick fold of cash, the Japanese guy gave him a key and went back to his TV, unwrapping a candy bar.

  “Outside again, Jackie, too much traffic in here. They start coming in from rush hour soon.”

  He led me out of the body room and around the back of the building to a square concrete construction that looked like it had been tacked onto the main block as an afterthought.

  “This is where they used to keep the blacks in the old days. The only time it’s used now is when Kung-fu needs a few bucks. Praise the Lord for more liberal times, eh?”

  He used the key on a recessed steel door that was rusting at the corners and pushed his way inside. The place was windowless and the lights were already on. Not fluoros but a line of clear low-watt bulbs that hung from the ceiling on dusty flex and threw an ochre pall down the center of the room. One wall had the same fridge doors as the main building, but there were a lot less of them. The other three walls were marked with trails of powdered plaster that spilled from blisters in peeling green paint. There was a pile of junk in one corner—old paint cans, a tarpaulin, a few pieces of what was probably refrigerator machinery. It looked like they used the place to store shit they couldn’t be bothered to throw away. Today, though, it was going to serve a different purpose. Ryan locked the door behind us.

  On a gurney something lay heavy and still and covered with a sheet.

 
“She’s all yours, Jackie. Whaddya think?”

  He pulled the material away with a flourish, like a stage magician. Big tits and a lot of cunt hair. I couldn’t argue, she was good-looking all right, even dead. Along with Karen and the jackhammer girl, this was the third corpse I’d seen. Maybe it was the familiarity, maybe it was because of the photos Ryan had given me, but the sight of her didn’t make me feel like puking or any of the other things you see on TV. Instead it was like when I’d watched Ryan stroking Karen’s pussy—I wanted to touch her, to see what her flesh felt like, to run my hands over her belly and the tops of her thighs. I knew she’d be smoother than any other woman I’d ever been with. My cock felt like it was carved from stone.

  “Look at that fucking beard. Let’s see what’s in the middle of it.”

  Ryan pulled the woman’s legs apart. One of them swung off the edge of the gurney and made tight rubbery arcs in the air for a few moments. The motion made her pelvis grind.

  “Whoa, look at that. She wants it, Jackie. The bitch is dead and she still wants fucking.”

  In the center of the dense black hair I could see a pale tear-drop of meat, about the color of skin on a side of beef. I wondered if she’d be slick inside. A smell came off her, but it wasn’t fish. It was more like the fragrance cheap soap leaves behind.

  Ryan used his thumbs to pull her open, she looked dry. I spat on my middle finger and pushed it into her. She was tight, but what struck me more was the cold, synthetic feel of her, like she was some injection-molded dummy that had never been alive. She had ridges along her cunt tunnel.

  “I bought her just for you, Jackie.”

  “You expect me to fuck her?”

  “It’s what you want. Might even do her myself after you’ve loosened her up.”

  I pulled my finger out of her hole. Before I could wipe it, Ryan grabbed my hand and stuck it under my nose.

  “Smell that? Know what it is? That’s the smell of what’s inside you, boy. All the stuff you want to do but don’t. Not because you think it’s bad or wrong or evil, but because you think you might get caught.”

  “You don’t know what’s inside me.”

  “Oh, you’re wrong there. I spent too many years looking at people. I’ve seen the things they want and there’s nothing that sets you apart from them. Everyone’s the same, only difference is some are less frightened of getting caught than others. I know you want to do it so stop shitting around. Your pants look like they’re gonna rip.”