Brand New Cherry Flavor

by Todd Grimson

  When Lisa, in her underwear, didn’t offer anything, the joke still seemed successful from Raelyn’s point of view, she laughed, she was so cocky that she must have gone to bed with someone, she practically smelled of it.

  Raelyn had given her the earrings, and Lisa had them on now. She had a vague feeling—maybe because of the larger mirrors hanging off the Aztec figure at Boro’s—that wearing these would contribute to her power, but she didn’t know how. Maybe when Lisa saw her later, Christine would know some new things … if she was still OK.

  Her neck was too bare, too vulnerable and exposed. She put on two necklaces, one a gold chain with a pendant of milky jade, the other a twisty leather thong. She put on the ring she had been given before, the antique ring she had been reluctant to wear.

  Code showed up with a Band-Aid on his nose, over the bridge. Some unidentified person had dropped him off; he rang at the gate. Selwyn was nowhere to be seen … he had been a little funny ever since the police came yesterday, and since he’d seen the jaguar bleed. They hadn’t slept together last night. She hadn’t wanted to, but he hadn’t asked or come by. When she’d asked him if he had any pain pills, he’d acted sort of moral about it—that is, he’d asked what she needed them for—whereupon she’d said, tired, with some annoyance, it didn’t matter, never mind. He’d brought her two Percodan a bit later. She’d taken one, thinking it might put her right to sleep, but it had not. Popcorn hadn’t hung around.

  Code seemed sort of sullen, his platinum hair wildly moussed, wearing a paint-spattered T-shirt (yellow, rose, green, a trace of blue) under an antique psychedelic velvet coat, plum-colored, with little gold fleurs-de-lys all over it, mismatched bronze and copper buttons that must have been sewn on as the originals came off and were lost. As he told her the coat’s history, after she’d commented on it, he brightened up. It had once belonged to Stevie Winwood, way back when he was in Blind Faith, twenty-some years before the Coke or beer commercials or whatever it was he did. Lisa had never heard of Blind Faith, a “supergroup” formed by members of Traffic and Cream when those bands had broken up. Code loved telling her stuff she didn’t know. Guys. He was wearing gray corduroy pants. She didn’t ask him about the paint on the T-shirt but couldn’t help noting the Band-Aid on his nose.

  The story became complex, and she lost track. They proceeded through traffic toward Venice, where Bloody Murder was opening for Godvomit at some dismal little hole.

  It was dark out, but not really, because of the white lights on the street. They went into the club. Neither of them was expecting the music to be any good. So what. Everybody here wanted to be Charlie Manson, or Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, or that was the pose. Lots of shaved heads, both sexes, lots of fat girls with stockings and garter belts, skirts too short to cover the white flesh above the black band … Lisa stopped noticing details. Fundamentally it was the same scene it had been for many years. More ritualistic behavior— undoubtedly there were some changes, fashion marches on, maybe Code was noticing, his antennae out, maybe there was some little current he could glean, but Lisa just wanted to get through Bloody Murder’s set, see Mary, and get out.

  It’s hard to judge a noise band, seeing them live. The acoustics of the space, accident (happily embraced), the traditional showcasing of contempt for the audience, etcetera. Mary Siddons, her hair in micro-braids, looking terribly thin, with swastika earrings, played bass. Another woman, older, blond with a large ring in her nose, was the lead vocalist. There were three guitarists and a drum machine.

  After a set, Code and Lisa were allowed backstage, the bouncer here looked fierce (crew cut and a death’s-head earring, a Godvomit T-shirt) but when Lisa said she knew Mary he yielded to her at once, tongue-tied and shy.

  Mary herself, sweaty, with red eye shadow, acted as if she’d seen Lisa last week. She introduced her boyfriend, Rod, a guitarist, a glowering hulk in a black tank top and a semimilitary haircut.

  “I knew you were out there,” Mary said. “I sensed your presence.”

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “Do you want an acting job?”

  Mary shrugged and looked at Rod. “I don’t know,” she said. “Doing what?”

  “In The L.A. Ripper sequel… the casting director’s got your name. I was supposed to direct it, but I got fired.”

  “They won’t want me, then, will they?”

  “They might.”

  “OK, maybe I’ll go over there.”

  “Don’t wear swastikas,” Lisa said, and Rod put in, “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Mary said. “It’s just a design. It’s called the twisted cross, or the flyfoot—”

  “Hindus use it all the time,” said Rod, who had one tattooed on his wrist.

  “Do what you want,” Lisa said, looking at Mary, not particularly liking her right now.

  “I’ll call you, OK?” Mary said, and Lisa said OK and wrote Popcorn’s number on the back of the casting director’s card. She didn’t want to receive a call from Mary asking for money, a call she could imagine all too vividly; yet even if Mary was unattractive to her in her present circumstances, with a Nazi boyfriend, embracing evil … even so, Lisa felt a certain responsibility for her, an unwilling state almost of love, because in Girl, 10, Murders Boys Lisa had used her, or she had found in Mary an embodiment of destructive psychic forces that were tempting but which Lisa ordinarily held in check. There was a connection between them, a sisterliness.

  Code drove them to Lauren Devoto’s. He took Lisa up to a room with video monitors that could zoom in anywhere in any of the many crowded rooms.

  Popcorn was at the video controls, with Lauren at his shoulder, dressed in red, and Alvin Sender was also there, studying the console’s images as some sort of perverse sexual theater loomed. Lisa had never before observed Lauren looking so attractive, if hard, scary, the tight red patent-leather tunic accentuating her large, overfirm, beyond-perfect breasts. There was something funny about her, Lisa didn’t know quite what it was.

  Lisa said hi to everyone. Popcorn didn’t respond, fascinated, like a spaceship captain, roving the sixteen cameras all around.

  “Stairway to Heaven,” Sender said, nodding toward Popcorn, and Lisa understood. Selwyn was no doubt terrifically high. She sat next to Selwyn, putting her hand on his back, massaging him, trying to establish contact, but he was happy, concentrating—maybe imagining he was directing the action in the different chambers, lit by different colors of light, which gradually changed, red to electric pink to turquoise to gold and orange and then back to red, linger on red.

  Lauren and Code left the room, saying they’d be back. When they were gone, Alvin Sender waited a while before saying, “Quite a scene, isn’t it?”

  Lisa shrugged. So what if people were doing S&M? She didn’t like Sender and didn’t care if he knew it. All she knew was that he was connected with the video business somehow … the video that had supposedly been made of her that time. She hated to think of it.

  “Why aren’t you down there?” Lisa finally asked. “What do you get out of all this?”

  Sender smiled and sort of squirmed. He was not unintelligent, but probably evil.

  “I would never let myself be photographed like that,” he said. “When you let yourself become an image … it becomes more than just a representation. It takes breath, it becomes an emanation … and you lose your otherness, your capacity to be natural. That’s what happens to stars who are overphotographed—they turn into icons, religious images painted on a piece of wood. Or images painted on a piece of film. The more intimate the pose that is publicized, the more reproductions, the less of your self you have left.” He paused, staring at her. “With some people—I don’t think this is true with you, but some people—it’s not much of a loss. What do I get out of all this? I supply the talent, I provide the opportunity.”

  “You’re a pimp.” Lisa didn’t say it with much emotion, little or no indignation; Sender looked up at the ceiling and said, “I’m an a
gent. I provide talent. My clients want to work. I’m on a different level, in a different kind of space from ‘pimp.’ I do so many other kinds of business … like your video, for instance. You’ve become quite an underground star.”

  She didn’t want to hear this. She couldn’t imagine exactly what was on this video, and she didn’t want to know. There was a strong chance also that Sender was exaggerating, to torment her—this supposed video might not even exist. How long could it be? What did it show?

  Popcorn was starting to slow down, no longer flipping switches and hitting buttons and guiding toggles with the same inspiration as before. He turned to Lisa and said, “This has been like Hieronymous Bosch, and El Greco, and James Ensor—all these feverish bodies … I think I’ve seen enough. Do you want to go?”

  She did. It was nice that he now seemed so rational, it was a relief. They went down the hall, the stairs, and out. The cool, dark night air refreshed her, and she suddenly thought: Fuck this “underground star” business. It was just a lie, Sender was lying to freak her out. She didn’t like his civilized smile, the knowing expression that might be from viewing and reviewing the same orgasm ninety-six times.

  “Ouch.” She reacted with alarm when, in the car, Selwyn unzipped her dress down to her stomach, his right hand meaning to feel her left breast, not to fondle it so much as to examine it tactilely, as though he didn’t know what one felt like anymore. It didn’t really hurt. But it wasn’t welcome either.

  She sat there passively for about a minute, feeling like maybe she should just surrender … considering total surrender, trying to get in that frame of mind, experimentally … as now Popcorn leaned over and bit at her nipple, tonguing it, his tongue tracing a circle around it until the nipple was sensitized, erect.

  Then he pulled back, sighed … she zipped up the patent-vinyl dress and started the red sports car, quickly leaving the Devoto estate.

  “I want some french fries,” Popcorn said. “Stop someplace and let’s get some french fries.”

  There were bright lights and automobiles all over. In Hollywood, Lisa chose an all-night diner she and Code used to go to. When she parked the car Popcorn woke up, or opened his eyes. She couldn’t tell how fucked up from Stairway to Heaven he might be.

  Inside, he ordered fries and a Coke and started examining the napkin dispenser very closely, presumably because it was polished shiny silver, with reflections of the whole room. Lisa had ordered a chocolate milk shake. She resisted telling Popcorn that he reminded her of a crow. But crows were her favorite birds.

  “Your earrings,” he said. Yes, they were mirrors. He reached across the table to touch them; she experienced a moment of real fear that he might tear one out of an earlobe.

  It was very crowded in here. Lisa had taken off her jacket because it was warm. Popcorn ate his french fries, with catsup, and looked around at the other denizens of the cafe.

  When he was done, he said he wanted a cigarette. He didn’t ask her to get him one, but she decided to do it for him, she got up and walked over to these spiked-hair or mohawked motherfuckers.

  “Can I borrow a cigarette?”

  “Yeah,” said the guy who seemed the dominant male. He lit it for her as one of the girls, chubby, dyed black hair, smirked but did not meet Lisa’s eyes.

  The lit cigarette was held out, and then, when Lisa went to take it, it was jerked back. But the second time he gave it to her with a smile. She inhaled seriously and then exhaled, watching the swirly, pale blue smoke. Popcorn showed no sign of remembering he had wanted to smoke. It was almost dawn.

  No, it was already dawn. The sun was making itself known, at a distance, two planets away. Pinkish, gray light against brown. Silver and dead blue. Totally sky.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The next day Lisa was picked up and taken down to the police station. Homicide detectives Bluestone and Brown. She got the impression that, being Sunday, it was their usual day off. Bluestone, the older, white one, now that he was convinced she was “wrong,” seemed almost sympathetic in a funny way, like he was sincerely interested in the workings of her mind. She found herself wanting him to like her, but it was impossible.

  The apartment she had lived in had blown up in the middle of the night. That was where the explosion had centered; much of the rest of the building had burned, but no one had been seriously hurt. Remains of a body had been found amongst the rubble and ashes. Bones, mostly, and a skull on the other side of the smoldering ruins.

  “Do you know someone named Duane Moyer?” asked Detective Brown.

  “I’ve met someone who said that was his name. This person told me he was a detective, hired by Nehi Laughton, the agent, to follow me around.”

  “Why did Laughton want him to do this? Do you know?”

  Lisa hesitated, then said, “He used to be Roy Hardway’s agent. Roy left L.A. sort of suddenly, made the film with me in Brazil, and Laughton hasn’t heard from him. He wants his ten, fifteen percent.”

  “Roy Hardway,” Bluestone said, writing it down. “Miguel Casablanca.” He stopped. “Did you ever know an Osvaldo J. Perez?”

  “No. I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He used to be Casablanca’s employer, until someone threw down on him with a twelve-gauge shotgun, both barrels. Did Casablanca ever talk about this to you?”

  “No. I barely knew him.”

  “How do you think he got that gun?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why would somebody blow up your apartment?”

  “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

  “You don’t seem very worried,” Bluestone said. “If someone blew up my home, I’d be concerned that someone meant me harm. What about it? Are you afraid of anyone? Any jilted boyfriends, anything like that?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Do you think that body is Moyer?”

  “It might be.”

  “Maybe he blew himself up,” Lisa said.

  “In your apartment? Why would be do that?”

  “Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he was trying to kill me and something went wrong. I don’t know, I’ve been at Popcorn’s.”

  “Have you seen Moyer? Have you had the feeling he was out there watching you?”

  “Not really. No, I haven’t. I guess I figured that after I talked to Laughton, he’d call Moyer off. It was stupid, anyway. And agents usually don’t like to throw money away. Unless they’ve gone crazy.”

  “You think Nehi Laughton’s crazy?”

  “I don’t know. Somebody must be, I guess.”

  After a few moments Detective Brown said, “You can account for your time last night, I take it.”

  Out with Code to see the band Bloody Murder, a visit backstage, then to a party at Lauren Devoto’s. Home with Popcorn, stopping at a diner on the way.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Popcorn asked her about the police in a reasonable manner, and it was only later, when he came to her room, that Lisa realized how angry this stuff was making him. It wasn’t the fuck or the manner of it—though, for the first time, he pinned her knees down, pressing down, bending her supple body so that her feet were up in the air near her face as his unusually stiff penis stabbed into her vagina, making her involuntarily emit a low percussive “uh” at the end of each rhythmic pelvic thrust—but when, about halfway through, he stopped for a while, tantalizing her with his stillness, pulling back and then pushing slowly, as she was breathing hard, she was suddenly aware of the fragrance of Jack Daniel’s on his breath and in the oil of his distant skin as he spoke, a monologue to fill the interlude, he knew he had her attention but not in this way, still she heard him and understood, he said, “I know you’re not telling me anything about what’s going on, you have your secrets, you can’t help it, right I don’t care, the only time you’re on the level is when you’re staring at the ceiling, I don’t mind, I don’t care if it’s these drugs or whatever, Brazilian gangsters, I’m very fond of you, even if you’re just using me

  for your own reasons, t
hat’s OK. I don’t have to know if you don’t want me to, I’ll do whatever you want. The police can show up for dinner every other day and as long as it’s OK with you, it’s cool. I’m cool too, as long as you’re OK.”

  The velocity of the fuck returned to an athletic level she didn’t think he could sustain; for no reason she said “ow” as a signal just before she came, gripping him so tightly both inside and with her arms around his neck that he was sentimentally moved.

  “Oh, I love you, I love you,” he said as he sawed away another hundred times so that he might ejaculate where he was. She endured this, and could have fucked some more. She had gotten used to his cock in there; she gave a little groan of discomfort when he pulled it out and rolled off to one side. He had been saving up, she thought.

  Boro had had her building blown up, she felt sure. Moyer’s actual fleshy head was no doubt in the process of being shrunk: his skull and his bones (and maybe his wallet) had been thrown in to excite the cops. Boro was building a case, and she felt trapped. She had called the number, and no one answered, no Christine. It might have been unplugged. Was this a ploy to lure her in? Her breathing slowed, she was limp and relaxed, spent, as the perspiration dried on her skin.

  Knowing nothing, Popcorn kissed her shoulder, squeezed her hand. She managed a faraway, soft smile.

  After seemingly dreamless, dark sleep, morning came quickly. Popcorn had an erection against the back of her thigh, and she turned over and jerked him off a little, then sportively placed her mouth over the head of the organ … she was giving him a blow job, in her mind as a prelude to a morning fuck, but his pleasure was evidently so exquisite, he liked it so much, that she kept at it, his hand held her there, pressing on the nape of her neck. When she was ready to leave he pushed her back, he wanted her to keep sucking him, and she went back to it, but she could feel through the throb in the end of his cock, a kind of gathering heaviness, that he might come. The hand on her neck seemed more powerful to her now; she breathed through her nose. She glanced up toward his face; his eyes were tightly closed. She didn’t spoil it for him, keeping her mouth tight, her jaw—and he really held her there, she felt the contractions through her tongue and the roof of her mouth as he came, he kept her head there in such a way that the hot spurts of semen laced the back of her throat, she choked and swallowed, she felt coerced into swallowing it all. It tasted like the memory of bitter licorice crossed with snot.