She fondles your equipment while you check out hers. After a hurried and hungry make-out session, she jumps directly to pants-off, the point of no return. She interprets your lack of experience as the leisure of someone who has done this before and is in no hurry. She makes you extra-slick with her mouth and pulls you aboard while some videotape plays in the background, a movie you can’t even recall.
Abruptly, just like that, you realize you are inside her. Rather, that she has surrounded you, and she has a helluva grip down there.
The process is all het up and distorted by two bottles of extremely cheap, fruit-flavored vino. You made the mistake of trying to match her swig for swig, and now your vision is plunging and dotting, your head light, your guts broiling. Spicy pepperoni plus fiery alcohol plus over-stress equals . . . emissions. The horrific thought of venting unseemly gas during your first real sexual encounter distracts you so that you don’t climax right away, like you feared you would. Below you, Carla is really getting zoned, grabbing your ass and ramming away with her pelvis, digging in with her heels and bucking to the rhythm of her own breathy gasps. She comes quickly and easily, grinding into the next sequence as soon as she achieves the first spike. No downtime. She seems to be an expert at this. Compared to you, at least.
You’re busy clenching your ass to keep from farting.
C’mon c’mon baby come in me come in me baby c’mon . . .
It’s like she’s trying to demonstrate power, to prove she can make you let go, but hearing her hiss this gentle mantra is more than you can bear, and abruptly your groin goes soft and rubbery as your semen glurts into her. You stop thrusting and can feel your heart slamming against your chest, echoing her own beat, which is making one of her adorable breasts wiggle.
Then your stomach clenches into a greasy fist, and you shit all over yourself. Hydrochloric diarrhea shoots from your ass, sideswipes her thigh, stains the floral-patterned sofa. The air goes pungent with the reek of your embarrassment.
You stumble to the kitchen sink in time to throw up still-recognizable pizza into the disposal. It stinks like strawberries, bile, and apples from the wine. Carla is hollering about the sofa, not vulnerable at all despite the fact that she’s nude. Her eyes accuse you. It’s the fall of 1984, the year Orwell warned everyone about.
Most of your future sexual encounters will reflect the inaugurational paradigm. Without the cleanup phase.
Such catastrophes need only occur a single time to make a lasting impression. You think of this incident every time you and a woman begin the dance that leads to intromission. Even now, your favorite part is the moment at which they accede. The “yes” part. The sex is almost secondary—deft, now; certainly knowledgeable, technically proficient. But the real achievement, for you, has always been selling woman on the idea that they want to fuck you. Everything else is leading up to, or going away from, that fleeting moment. This peculiar mind-set was part of your redraft of your own character, after you got to college with a clean slate and no friends, no hangers-on from your past, and no reputation.
Fucking clients—that came later—when you were a pro.
“Por favor, señor, please to enter.” The gate buzzed and the man smiled at me with tobacco-edged teeth. This time, I knew I was walking through a metal detector.
I saw a rake leaning against an elm tree. I thought of Buster from Texas, relegated to the fogbanks of childhood, his head split open and bleeding, my fault. If he’d died, I would have heard . . . something, surely.
As I waited in the parlor, I tried to recollect the way Dandine had greeted the Sisters, like a long-lost son, and decided to try and assess their mood before I ventured anything so bold. My ebbing battery of charm, I hoped, had enough juice left to curry a pair of little old men who displayed themselves as little old women. In deference to their delicate sensibilities, I had turned my GAY MAFIA MEMBER T-shirt inside out, and redonned my jacket from the car.
“Ah, my dear Mr. Lamb!” It was the Sister with the clubfoot. “What a pleasant surprise to see you again so soon. I trust our friend Mr. D. is well?”
“Probably in better shape than I am,” I said, trying for an honest face.
She shielded a tiny smile behind her equally tiny, beringed hand. “I shouldn’t say anything, but . . . you did observe the proper precautions?”
“Nobody knows I’m here,” I said. “And nobody followed me.”
“Courtesy is often lost, these days. Perhaps our business would better be discussed in chambers. Or perhaps you would prefer to avail yourself of our confessional?”
I immediately pictured restraints and handcuffs. Certainly the talents of the Sisters extended to the science of information extraction. Ball gags and cattleprods. I assumed the second Sister was engaged in the abuse of some policeman or priest, for money to cover operating overhead, or perhaps to maintain this place’s excellent soundproofing and charmingly Old World concept of security.
“Oh, and I brought you a little something I hope you might enjoy.” I handed over the bottle of Groth Reserve California Cabernet that had taken me fifteen minutes to select, nervous as a sophomore on prom night.
“Oh. Oh! The nineteen ninety-two. There were only fourteen hundred cases of this made, you know. How very, very kind of you. Please come this way.”
I knew the Groth had been a sly choice, not a name brand, a truly awesome vintage to gainsay the idea of snob appeal.
“Chambers” turned out to be an office I had not seen on my first trip. It had a parquet floor and was slightly crowded with Italian antiques. The Sister took her place at the helm of a Queen Anne desk and directed me toward a chair with gnurled arms and dark velvet upholstery.
I had no idea how to start. “Sister, I don’t wish to seem tactless, but—”
“Tish-tosh,” she said, waving it away. “Ask me anything. You’re a friend of Mister D’s.”
“NORCO.” I had a hard time getting the word to leave my mouth.
She looked sympathetic. “Oh, yes. They’re very interested in acquiring you. So, it seems, are the police—directed by their betters, for nuisance value to you, I would speculate. I know what Mr. D told us, but could you please outline the problem from your own perspective?”
She was all ears and bright, glittering eyes as I told her what I knew. Or what I thought I knew. Occasionally she said, “I see, I see.” Halfway through my multidirectional spill of events, she offered me a glass of very substantial Cabernet, almost as though she knew already what I liked. A couple of times she held up a hand, indicating “hold that thought,” while she scribbled notations on a pad of vellum.
“My dear boy,” she said. “You say you have no leverage, nothing with which to deal with people who detest making deals. You are being far too modest. You possess avenues and options you may not suspect. You really are a true innocent, and it pains me to see you abused in the ways you describe.” She folded the page on which she had been writing and handed it across.
“What’s this?”
“Your strengths, young man. We Sisters make no recommendations. We provide information.”
I started to read it.
“Please,” she said. “Not until after you have left us.”
I stowed the page in my jacket pocket. “I . . . uh, I’m a little short on a proper offering right now, Sister.” I was thinking of that collection plate in the foyer, and the fat envelope Dandine had left in it.
“Tish-tosh,” she said. “You will give what you can, when you can, out of the goodness of your heart. Or, like in those motion pictures, we may require a service of you, some day.” She made a face and shot me a look that reminded me of Rocky, the gangster infant in the Warner Brothers cartoons. She indicated my expensive gift wine, now free of its designer bag. “You were thoughtful enough to bring this, and that is what counts. Courtesy and consideration are always on the verge of being lost, don’t you think?”
She actually managed to make me feel as though I was chatting with a matronly older la
dy who actually gave a damn about me. I haven’t had an official mom for decades, and it felt strange. But not unwelcome.
Back in Zetts’s “borrowed” GTO I examined the sheet the Sister had given me. Four names, four addresses in Los Angeles.
Alicia Brandenberg/St. Regis Hotel. That was in Century City, on the Avenue of the Stars, and she probably had a suite and a staff.
Theodore Ripkin, Candidate #1. Could most likely be found at a house he owned in Beverly Hills, up near Cielo Drive, not far from the original location of the Tate/LaBianca murders in nineteen sixty-eight.
Garrett Stradling, a.k.a. G. Johnson Jenks, a.k.a. Candidate #2. Was downtown in Park Towers, not far from where Dandine’s first automobile had blown up.
Thorvald Gerardis/ NORCO. This was the first time I’d seen the proper spelling, but as too many people had advised me already, nobody’s name was for real. The Sister’s annotation was cryptic: New access at 1st Interstate Bank bldg. Just reading the word NORCO was unfairly chilling. Did this mean NORCO had an office, or something, down near Sunset and Vine?
There was no way I could call Dandine. Check his progress, get his advice, hear that Zetts was okay so I could reassure him about the car. Explain that I was a bit out of my head. No way for Dandine to tell me I was acting like a Grade A, USDA-certified rump roast of stupidity.
I brought the beast to roaring life and tried to rein it toward the mouth of the alley. Jenks and Ripkin would be unapproachable. They could be tilted against each other, and against the acidic Ms. Brandenberg, later. A backstop. I still lacked the balls to go knocking on NORCO doors, just yet. I already wanted to check off Alicia first, if for no more cogent reason than I wanted to hear, from her own photogenic lips, the story of how she had fired Choral Grimes, then had her abducted or murdered, and then, probably, had fluttered off to some cocktail party. I didn’t have any right to be angry about Choral—I had put her in danger as much as any power-bitch boss or assassin wielding barbiturates. But I was angry, goddammit.
I was cheesed at the derailment of my babe-in-the-woods life among the walking dead . . . but I felt stronger for the knowledge. I was pissed off that the ideal of decent people, hard work, and fair play was just another fantasy to which we all paid lip service, like obedient consumers doing their bit for word-of-mouth . . . but I had become less blind. I was livid at my own fear of what might happen, or the things I might have to do . . . but at least, then, I would better know what kind of material I was made from, and whether it was fiber or simple bullshit that strung it all together into the nervous wreck that was me.
If I lived long enough.
Zetts’s huge road-grabbing tires bumped the curb as I negotiated the GTO onto Olympic. If I had hung around for five more minutes, I would have been bushwhacked by the four vehicles that arrived outside the Sisters’ and stopped in a crescent formation in the lot. I found out about this later. No tags, no trim, dealer plates. Like Zetts had said, no shit hanging from the mirrors. I would have heard the old Mexican’s shotgun cut loose. Once.
I might be dead now, or I might have helped.
Alicia Brandenberg’s suite at the St. Regis Hotel was the sort of full-amenity perk that charged normal humans upward of $650 per day and offered twenty-four-hour room service and a complimentary fifty-minute massage. It was up top, on a keyed, secure floor, and I didn’t feel in a mountaineering mood. (For the record, I still don’t know how Dandine had gotten onto my balcony in the middle of the night, a couple thousand years ago. Somewhere along the line I have a memory, probably false, of asking him:
(“You don’t talk about yourself a lot, do you?”
“Who to?” he asked.
“Point.” It was my usual [1], [2], [3] . . . and I was getting sick of it.)
Someone with Alicia’s supercharged daybook had to cruise the St. Regis lobby several times during an average business day; it was inevitable. The bar was centrally located, and I needed something to eat, not to mention a fairly hefty drink. I was down to my final, post-jail wad of cash, whittled to about a hundred bucks after the hit it took to buy wine to impress the Sisters.
Enough for appetizers and a beverage, in this place. Maybe two. I had to sit and calculate whether I could afford a sandwich. That was a relatively new experience; not thrilling. I had become so accustomed to flipping out the correct piece of plastic, signing for goods, and trusting the bottomless bowl of an expense account, that the only reflex skill I retained was the ability to sum up a 20 percent tip. If the service was lousy enough, perhaps I could get away with fifteen—that would certainly get me noticed, here.
More harmful exposure was offered by the TV flat-screens hovering over the bar. Thanks to Dandine, I was dreading the sight of my picture popping up on the news and hearing some blow-dried dimwit say more as it happens. There was literally no place in the room where you could not see a screen, another footprint of progress that was especially annoying around Oscar night in Hollywood. I devoured a French dip on grilled sourdough bread—it was pretty good, even though it set me back about fifty bucks total. Sipping beer would stretch my meager bank more efficiently.
Just like when I was in lockup, I scoped the talent of the room. Every now and then, an imposing dude would cycle the lobby. There were about three different ones, none hotel security. Zetts was right; they were obvious when you knew what to look for.
Playing cheap detective is exactly as dull as watching dust gather on a tabletop. Movies and fiction present the stakeout mode as irretrievably eroding—infinitudes of dead time, as you wait for a bus that is already late—until a moment of hot, scary action. Usually the payoff is threatening enough to make the boring part preferable. But in fiction, the waiting is usually edited out, and characters are able to gird for their instant in the spotlight of danger. They reflect upon what has brought them to this phase of their lives; how the signposts had pointed, all along, to some obvious culmination. Imaginary gumshoes are always en pointe and on target, no matter how thuddingly exasperating the wait.
People can sneak up on you and catch you by surprise if your guard is down. Dandine would not approve of laziness on the job.
I was nursing my third beer when somebody tapped on my shoulder, saying, “You have a call, sir.”
It was a guy roughly the size of my refrigerator. Lots of neck muscles, his tie more a noose. I’d seen him cruise the lobby about an hour ago. Quarter-inch hair, the back of his head a tuck-and-roll like a package of frankfurters. Big suit that still looked constrictive. A black man with the muddy green eyes of a deep-sea predator.
“If you’ll come this way, please.”
“Nobody knows to call me here,” I said. To try faking tough with this man would be transparently bogus. “What if I want to stay right where I am?”
He smiled, or rather, simulated what humans did when they smiled. He leaned on the bar next to me, his forearm parallel to mine. “In that event, sir, I’d do this.” He cocked my wrist, with my elbow nestled into his. When he straightened, I had to stand up, no choice. “Then you’d have to go where I go.”
“Okay, okay. Just let me pay the—
“Already taken care of, sir.”
“Stop calling me ‘sir.’ ”
“Yes, sir.”
That was how it went. He directed me to the elevators. Phone call, my butt.
“Where’re we going?”
“Up.” He stuck a brass key into the elevator’s button panel and accessed a secure floor. When the doors closed, he said, “Arms up, please.” He caught my arms on the rise and pulled them straight out, as though arranging a shirt on a hanger, impatient with my geometry. After a swift, professional poke-and-pat, he drew a doodad with a whisper-thin telescoping antenna and indicated I should hold my place, arms out.
“What’s that?”
“Scan for bugs,” he said, sweeping up-down, left-right, pits and crotch.
He frowned at the display on the scanner. “You’re clean. Stand there, please.” He indicated the c
orner of the car, behind me. All I needed was a dunce cap.
“Is this about—
He held a thick finger to his lips. “Shh.”
I did that dumb elevator thing where you watch the numbers.
In the corridor, I noticed my keeper walked with his right foot turned slightly outward, hitting harder than the left. It was subtler than a limp. I decided not to mention it. See, I can learn new things. And I figured I should savor my own smugness a tiny bit more before I died. In this world, I would hear the gunshot only after I glimpsed my own brains flying out.
We passed another linebacker; Marine Corps buzz cut, a yard of shoulders, shrink-wrapped into a too-tight suit with stretch seams. They traded nods like cannibal elders and I was conducted through double doors with brass-drop handles into a suite that seemed to take up the whole southern side of the hotel floor. Tons of glass and miles of view. Room-service carts with sterling service and barely touched food. Several televisions all going at once, the news feeds and stock quote channels all muted.
“Sit,” said my keeper, and I plonked into a straight-backed Louis XIV chair designed to be desperately uncomfortable. He pointed at the tray. “Coffee there, if you want it. They have somebody grind it right before they brew it. It’s pretty good.” He shrugged.
Then he popped me on the right ear, putting his weight into the jab. My brain heard a loud howitzer noise and bursting purple globes obliterated my vision; errant planets. Before I knew I was falling, I had already landed on the floor and won a rug burn on my cheek. The whole right side of my head was flushed with a waterfall of white noise.
Tears blurred my view of the legs in front of me, but the shoes were at least eight hundred bucks’ worth of Italian leather. Stupid, to guess who.
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