Dr. Adder

by Jeter, K W

  “Will you shut up,” said Adder, enraged, turning his knifelike face upon Pazzo. What’s with him? he thought seethingly. He turned back to the general, feeling both his mood and effect shattered. “You want her?” he said. “You know how much it costs.” The words sounded lame in his mouth. Pazzo was right, thought Adder. A bad old movie.

  Somehow, Romanza seemed not to have noticed Pazzo’s interruptions. The general’s face had frozen upon it the look of someone abruptly sprung upon by something large and carnivorous. Shakily, he fetched a small silver box from his coat pocket, extracted a minute red capsule, and swallowed. Adder could follow its slow, struggling descent through the fat-swaddled throat. “Please, Adder,” the general whispered. He ran pale, blunt fingers through his sparse hair. “I can’t raise that much money. But I’ve got to have—you know, I—” He broke off, his chins trembling, infantile.

  It always, reflected Adder, comes down to this. You contemptible turd. He had watched more than enough such men, with their gonads where their brains should be, to have formulated certain behavior patterns for them. Could, in fact, predict their precise moment of collapse: that point at which the mark was left groveling sans wit, sans honor, sans dignity, and soon sans money, ready to exchange any and everything for the object of his fixated lusts. General Romanza, being of weaker stuff than most, and having accelerated the process with overindulgence in a variety of drugs, was nearing that point rapidly.

  Adder knew just what to do, which was to screw out of the general everything as quickly as possible. A certain momentum would thereby be achieved, the velocity of which would almost be capable of sucking out his gold fillings.

  “Don’t worry, General R., old fella,” Adder said, rising from his chair. He felt good again; even if, he thought, I’m going to have to ream Pazzo’s ass out for fooling around like that. He walked over to a large, dust-laden television in one corner and switched it on; its gray rectangle of light fell into the room. Might as well catch old Mox’s broadcast, he thought, until the operating room’s ready. He stopped to pat the general on his trembling shoulder as he headed back to his chair behind the desk. “I’m sure,” he continued affectionately, “we’ll be able to find a solution to your financial difficulties—one that everybody will be happy with, you’ll see.”

  Through the walls, Limmit could hear all around him the sounds of happy or—mostly—obsessed copulation. He stood by the grime-encrusted window of the hooker’s room and stared out at the scurrying Interface below. No escape from it, he thought despairingly. At least not tonight.

  “I’m sorry,” the whore called out again. Miserable, conscious of some failure. He turned away from the window and walked back to the side of the bed. “It’s all right,” he said, gently touching her shoulder. She was somehow prettier now that her cowlike passivity had been penetrated. “Not your fault.” His eyes passed over her small, handful breasts, the flat boyish plain of her stomach, and then, unstoppable, to between her thighs, her legs sprawled artlessly apart on the bed. There, the sight that had frozen him, then swelled and pushed him across the room to the window from where he had looked out sightlessly into the night, sweating, his mind convulsed with sudden fear and surmise.

  She had finished stripping, he remembered, practiced, seconds after she had switched on the small television that provided the room’s only illumination, the screen’s tiny, muted laughter sounding distant; Limmit had stepped forward to the side of the bed, hands at his belt buckle; leaned over her patient, horizontal form; and found, trembling beneath him, pudenda that had been altered and reconstructed so as to be nearly unrecognizable. Engorged with real or simulated passion, they had reddened and flexed slightly under his gaze. Baroque, pathic convolutions of the vulva, other parts shining wet like fleshy sea plants emerging from the cave formed by her womb. The effect was indescribable: Limmit had felt himself growing dizzy, falling toward them before he had sucked in his breath raggedly and fled to the window.

  Now the girl lay on her side, looking at him with sad eyes, unable to comprehend what had happened. Limmit, his innards quivering but under control, studied the sight again. What lusts they served to satisfy, what perversions they could adeptly draw forth, he was not even able to guess. He realized that there were things he might not even care to find out about L.A.

  He saw, surmounting it all, at the point where perhaps not too long ago her pubic hair might have begun, a small circular tattoo on her abdomen. He had noticed the same mark prominent on the stumps of the amputee hookers in the street, but had not gotten close enough to make out its details. It was an amateurish, almost childishly executed cartoon of a grinning snake’s head. The conviction grew cold and large within him. He touched the tattoo lightly. “His trademark?” he asked.

  The hooker knew who he meant. She shook her head. “The girls do it themselves,” she said, “after the operations. With a ball-point pen and a needle.”

  Limmit nodded slowly. It figured: the altered genitalia had a weirdly professional finish to them, too smooth to match evenly the crude cartoon snake. Professional, he thought numbly. So this is what Dr. Adder does. I can’t even handle this, and I’m supposed to deal with him? Impossible.

  And what’s worse, Limmit realized, is that I know there’s even more to it than this. But what? He searched his memory, looking for some clue he had seen in the street, or the old man’s babble, or something, that indicated anything beyond what this girl had shown him between her legs.

  Perhaps I just sense it, said Limmit to himself. Something I still don’t know about Dr. Adder. Or else there is nothing more to be revealed—this was enough for L.A. to shake me with.

  He glanced again at her, then away. Why did she do it, why did they all do it? wondered Limmit. It might be as well to ask it of lemmings or the tides. Sea waves, animal waves, human waves; he was beginning to feel that whores’ motives were like the oceans—basically unfathomable. He asked anyway, and was proven correct. She responded to his question by smiling sadly and slowly shaking her head.

  There was no point in staying, trying to delay the inevitable. He peeled another bill off his rapidly diminishing roll, tucked it into her clothes piled carelessly at the foot of the bed, and picked up the black briefcase. He was wrapped in the hallway’s darkness, after the door shut behind him had cut off his last sight of her, vulnerable in the television’s flat glare.

  Emerging onto the star- and lamp-lit roof from the total darkness of the stairwell, Azusa finished zipping up his fly. I hope nothing’s gone wrong, he thought, trying to locate Milch through the crowd of partygoers. I shouldn’t have left him—not at a time like this. Berating himself under his breath, he began pushing his way through the massed, sweating bodies and flushed faces.

  His worst fears were realized when he reached the guardrail. Milch stood by one side of the gun and sight clamped to the rail, while Patti F. lay sprawled a few yards away, where (Azusa surmised) Milch had flung her, eyes wide in uncomprehending fear like an animal’s. The partygoers had formed a little crescent around the tableau, their hilarity dampened by whatever had happened.

  “Where the hell have you been?” rasped Milch upon catching sight of Azusa. His drunkenness was gone. His face was livid with anger and a complex mix of other emotions.

  “Screwing,” said Azusa without thinking. It was the truth: one of the advantages to being Milch’s agent was the spinoff charisma Azusa derived from his intimate, indispensable association with him. The real object of adoration among the active residents of Rattown, both male and female, was Dr. Adder, Azusa had realized upon his own arrival in the slums two years ago. But Milch and the two or three other triggermen were celebrities enough in their own right.

  “You buddyfucker,” said Milch venomously. “You’re the one that hooked me up with that bitch.” He waved a shaking hand in Patti F.’s direction.

  He hadn’t, but Azusa let it slide, argument being pointless. “So what’s wrong with her?”

  “Don’t you see, you
dumb cocksucker. Look—right—there.” Azusa followed the direction of Milch’s quivering forefinger. Patti F. looked back at them both in mute resentment.

  “So what’s the matter?” asked Azusa, exasperated.

  “Her ring. Right there. On her goddamn hand. ”

  “A ring, and that’s all? Jesus Christ, the last chick you had up here had rings through her nose, her snatch, even her nipples. What’s so special about this one’s?”

  Milch breathed heavily. Almost bashfully, he whispered, “Well, shit, it’s my old high school’s ring.” The words tumbled out in a rush. “Buena Maricone High School, back in Orange County.”

  Azusa stared into Milch’s eyes and thought amazedly: I’ll never figure this dude out. Never. What’s running through his mind? How ashamed his old civics teacher would be to see him here, gun in hand? Do his sphincters tremble at John Mox’s TV

  image? What the hell—maybe the night could yet be salvaged. He motioned over two of Milch’s hard-core fans and pointed out Patti F. to them. Get rid of her,” he said, not even bothering to watch as they hustled her off.

  He surveyed the party. Milch needed another female to help him pull the trigger, preferably fresh stuff to get his mind off that stupid Patti F. (but then again, he thought charitably, how was she to have known). He spotted the teenager he had just had in the stairwell, plunged into the crowd, and dragged her by one wrist over to the guardrail.

  It must be nice, thought Azusa, dispassionately watching Milch grappling the anonymous new girl, to be so talented and simple—to forget and heal so easily. Not to know the agonies of responsibility. Ah well. He glanced at the small TV, still muttering and giggling to itself nearby. Not long, he thought, till Mox comes on. The best time for the shot. He drew from his jacket a cardboard box, surprisingly heavy for its small size, and, sensing the crowd of partygoers press forward excitedly, lifted the lid to reveal a massive, intricately detailed large-caliber bullet.

  If only life was like a science fiction novel, thought Limmit, pushing slowly through the crowds on the street again. He remembered his own collection sitting in the shelves over his bed in Phoenix, now lost to him forever. If only people actually did just sit around and talk, unloading on each other the secret or even well-known underpinnings of their society ... info-dump, the practice had been called in a book review from one of the tattered old magazines Limmit had among his collection.

  The incompetent writer’s way of revealing the details of his story’s setting, or whatever axe that particular writer had to grind. In reality, it never took place: the fundamentals of a society remained unarticulated, something to be lived upon, not talked about. There are no revealing conversations, thought Limmit, for me to eavesdrop on and discover what’s underneath L.A. Something about Dr. Adder; that’s messed me up so bad.

  He stopped still on the sidewalk. The traffic was thinner here, at one far end of the Interface. L.A.’s dark buildings sagged together out of the reach of the street’s neon lights. The black briefcase hung oppressively heavy, crushing in his hand. There was no hope of pressing on to see Dr. Adder, not at this moment, even if he could get in. The fear, thought Limmit. I need a drink. Is there alcohol in L.A.?

  Miraculously, he noticed a flickering neon sign, BAR, above the door of the last building before the light ended. As he entered and walked hurriedly to the bar, he had only the general impression that the semidark interior was filled with people seated at small, circular tables.

  After he knocked back half of the brown acrid fluid the bartender produced in exchange for another bill from his roll, Limmit glanced over his shoulder to get a better look at the bar’s other occupants. Jesus, he thought, turning back to gaze into the remainder of his drink. There had been only one bar, company-owned, on the Phoenix Egg Ranch, so it was impossible to go into the wrong one. Even if this is the only bar in L.A., he said to himself, it’s still the wrong choice.

  He glanced quickly around again, hoping that his eyes, adjusted to the darkness, would reveal that the former sight had been an illusion. It hadn’t been: The bar’s tables were still crammed with scores, or even hundreds, of replicas of the gray-coated leafleteer who had knocked down the old man earlier. They were all obviously surly with alcohol, and bending upon him unwavering, hate-filled stares.

  Limmit looked up into the bartender’s blank, unsympathetic face, then around to the door by which he had entered. It seemed a long distance away, through a narrow corridor of the packed tables. Which is more likely, he thought, to get the shit beat out of me: making a break for it or staying put? Shit—this is what happens when you go into strange bars.

  “Another one for my friend,” said an unfamiliar voice as Limmit was gazing morosely into his now empty glass. An arm slapped him across the shoulders. “And one for me.”

  Limmit looked in astonishment at the short, grinning figure perched on the bar stool next to him. “Uh, no thanks,” he mumbled. The figure wasn’t wearing a gray coat—was he just crazy or what? “I was just thinking of leaving.”

  “Nonsense,” said the figure as the bartender produced two more full glasses. “These guys’ll crack your ass cold if you try to leave here without me.”

  “I should feel safe in here?”

  The other shrugged. “Like I said, as long as you’re with me. It’s a popular assumption among these MoFos that I’m some sort of fingerman for the snipers up in Rattown. They think if they piss me off, they’ll be the next to get lined up in some gunsight. It’s not true, of course, but as long as they believe it, it’s all right with me. My name’s Droit, by the way.”

  “Rattown?” muttered Limmit to himself, puzzled. “Snipers?” This sounded ominous. He quickly gulped half of the second glass before him. To hell with waiting for the info-dump to come. “You may think this is funny,” he said, “but would you mind explaining those to me? I’m a stranger here.”

  Droit grinned wider. “Yes, I know,” he said. He waved a vague hand to the north. “Rattown. All those deserted slums and office buildings and shit in back of the Interface. The rest of L.A. Most of the dealers and hustlers you see here live right in the buildings lining the street. Certain others who are, shall we say, a little farther gone, live way back there. Two types, actives and downers. The downers are the real basket cases— too fucked up to do more than squat in their rooms and tremble. L.A.’s quite a psychosis factory. A woman they call Mother Endure—beats me where she came from—looks after them. Scrounges up food and sometimes medicine, lets them suck off her life force. The actives, most of them like to go on top of the abandoned office buildings with old CIA weapons they’ve dug up, and snuff one of these MoFos every now and then.” He sipped his own drink.

  “MoFos,” said Limmit. “Motherfuckers?”

  Droit shook his head. “Moral Forces. The Video Church of, to be exact. They’re John Mox’s little evangelists—he sermonizes on TV every night, a big power on the GPC exec board back in Orange County. Most everybody in L.A. hates Mox, though they watch him just for kicks, and some of the more hyperactive ones like to plug his fans in the gray coats.”

  “Tell me,” said Limmit. His tongue felt numb and clumsy from the alcohol. “Do they ever miss?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Then I’d feel safer out there than in here.”

  “That’s academic, since I don’t feel like leaving just yet. Why not stick around and answer a few questions for me?”

  “Why should I?”

  Droit smiled unpleasantly. “You might just want to oblige me, considering I know what’s in that briefcase.”

  Limmit considered this for a moment. Fuckin’ Goonsqua, he thought. Sending me out here not knowing anything more about L.A. than anybody else stuck on the Phoenix Egg Ranch would, not even how to get in to see Dr. Adder. Probably thought I wouldn’t come if I did know. And now this guy. “How do you know?” he said finally. “And so what if you do.” Droit’s smile grew wider. “Oh, I know all sorts of interesting things, Mr. E. Allen Lim
mit-who-just-got-in-from-Phoenix. And there’s sufficient markets for my information, thank you. Granted there aren’t many police around, but I could find one who’d be interested in your briefcase’s contents. But more likely, I’d sell the info to my old and reliable customer, Dr. Adder. Surprise is half the game in these sorts of transactions, hmm? Which is what you’d lose thereby. Whereas, just give me a few answers, and see how much you’d gain, relatively.”

  “All right,” said Limmit, after a second’s thought. “What do you want to know?”

  Droit pulled out a little pen and notebook. “Are you,” he asked clinically, “heterosexual?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I guess the bedhen counts that way, he thought. “Have you seen any hookers here in L.A. that look like your mother?”

  “How could I? My mother’s dead.”

  “Looks like, not is. ”

  “You ask some pretty weird questions, you know that?” exploded Limmit. He flushed with anger, feeling mocked by the absurdity of it.

  Droit patiently laid the notebook on the bar. “Look,” he said. “I’m in the information business. I’m the last of the pure, dispassionate social researchers. Selling my findings to whoever’ll pay the most. I do all right. Certain people, like Dr. Adder, are very interested in some of the things I find out.”

  “Dr. Adder wants to know if I’m queer?”

  “No,” said Droit flatly, watching his own hand pick up the notebook again. “This is for another customer.”

  “All right then,” said Limmit. “What else?”

  Drawing a thin pack of cards from his coat pocket, Droit said, “These are pictures of some typical L.A. women.” He handed the pack to Limmit. “Sort through them and pick out the ones whose laps you’d most like to, and least like to, sit on during a long train journey.”