The woman laughed in a full-bodied but controlled way, a talk-show response that could not be permitted to last for more than so-many air seconds. It was husky and from the diaphragm, not a girlish laugh, which Art could otherwise hear all around him. This woman, with her heavy mane of chestnut hair and thoroughbred length of neck, with her elegant, small teeth and heat static lighting her eyes, had to be the legendary Michelle, She Who Signed the Invitation. She wore a satin dress with a mandarin collar, slit to the hip on both sides. Her heels made her taller than Art; without them he estimated she would be at eye level, exactly.
"Michelle?" said Art.
She automatically shook his hand. "Travers. Price rarely assigns surnames at these things. No point."
"How'd you know her name?" said Price.
"Because-"
Michelle cut Art off, overriding him. "Because he got the party invite in his mailbox, and that little muffin Suzanne probably babbled all about us." She looked back to Art. "Close to true?"
"Close enough. Listen, Price, I didn't mean to come off like I was bitching about your music. Your house, your music."
Price smiled a big alpha-wolf smile. "Shit, most of these dimwits wouldn't have the balls to complain if they hated it."
Michelle flinked a Zippo lighter one-handed and fired up a long European cigarette about the diameter of a nightclub drinking straw. "Did Price give you the tour?"
"We made it from the living room to the kitchen." Art sipped his Dr Pepper, feeling strangely like a child standing in the midst of drinking, smoking parents. He had already deduced that Price and Michelle had this intimidating effect on most people who encountered them. It was calculated, intentional.
"Well, there's probably an orgy in the cabana house by now,"
Price said with a slight drawl that made him sound like a judge reluctantly pronouncing sentence. "I'll bet I can guess who: Jory and Darian, Lex and Marisa, and whoever they could get drunk enough not to care. There's five bedrooms upstairs, not counting mine, which is locked. If you were to butt into the others you'd find a variety of people sleeping last night, getting high, waking up with strangers, or huddled into an assortment of self-pitying minor nervous breakdowns."
Art thought of Suzanne's friend Dina, hiding in a spare room, trying to navigate her obscure life crisis. Suzanne was probably with her right now, apprehensive about running into her own apparently terrifying ex-boyfriend. He abstracted his gaze past Michelle long enough to verify that he did, in fact, see a woman naked from the waist down sitting on top of one of the large concert PA speakers in the living room, bobbing and weaving her head to the thumping bass.
"That's Estelle-Leigh," said Price. "She thinks my system is some sort of big vibrator."
"Excuse me," Art said. "I don't mean this to sound the wrong way… but is this some sort of swingers thing, you should pardon the use of the archaic term?''
The glint popped again in Michelle's gaze. It reminded Art of undersea creatures who could flash lurid colors for defense. "Ooh, Art. You mean like wife swapping?" She said it mischievously, like a dirty secret or the punchline to a ribald joke. "It's just a party, Art. Friends and acquaintances. Remote location, plenty of mood-altering substances, plus lots of time. Sex happens."
What did Art think he was looking at? Actors, ingenues, parvenus, people who sought the edge because they had read it was cool. People who wanted to be like the people they saw in commercials, driving cars faster than legal. No live band. Assorted goofy shave jobs, tats, and nobelium bars. A knot of New York, clad in black, disdaining beach culture. A couple of older, shamanesque attendees who could still remember hippies. A lot of people who were just wasted and trying to figure out what came next. A couple of geeks, the kind who would comp you computer favors as payback for getting them next to actual women. A couple more who probably had a little expert white-collar crime in their legal jackets.
An executive domme cast a pointed amber glance Art's way, appraising his value, then looked away with a priceless half smile of dismissal.
"Don't be so uncomfortable,'' said Michelle, linking arms with him. "This isn't one of those 'play party' things, because I have no patience for sensation junkies so deadened they have to wallow in one anothers' trifling little extremes, digging around in their skin with razors, trying to find nerves that still fire. No bondage rodeo-tacky.''
"That would be out in the cabana," Price interjected.
Michelle put a finger to Price's lips and soldiered on. "This isn't a Tantric grope-fest or a cable documentary about the turn-ons of the shallow, and we're not Scientologists. So relax and tell me a little about yourself."
"Architect," said Price. "Built that house up near the radar thing. Lives alone, except for this German-shepherd kind of dog. Sometimes engages in shooting practice in his backyard. Y'know, there's a guy here you ought to meet, if you're seriously into firearms."
"How did you know all that?" Art felt naked, his cover blown.
"Suzanne said as much. Plus, I've seen the house up there. Some of it's fairly obvious."
"I've never seen you that far up the beach, before."
Price shrugged. "Anyhow, this young man, Luther, might be able to procure you a couple of unpapered collector's items, if you happened to be of a mind. Look for the black dude with the silver dangly earring-it's an Eye of Ra."
Art knew the symbol from his reference books, and the leatherette box on his nightstand, formerly Lorelle's. It was the image prompted by Derek's odd hand tattoo. Michelle strolled Art into the dining room, which was doing duty as a huge buffet area. "We've got two waiter-bartender people who are here for the duration. They're not scheduled to restock until three or so, and if they're smart, they're just waking up downstairs.''
If this place had a downstairs, from what Art had seen, then perhaps its foundation was sufficiently anchored to keep the Whole building from taking wing if the winds kicked up into triple digits. He pictured the sink plan in his mind and imagined the grade of concrete used.
"He's probably banging her," said Price. "He's one of those sexually vague, LA-actor wannabes, and she's one of those pneumatic Latina chicks. She couldn't keep her eyes off him, and I bet she finally got the best of him. I thought he was gay."
"Maybe he's up there with Stefan, and she's up there with Libia," said Michelle, smirking.
Price indicated the spread in the dining room. "Snacks? Party favors? No needle shit, is all I ask. You a coke person?"
Art shook his head. "Long ago and far away, and never again." He crossed his heart. Between a serving dish of cheeses and a bowl dusted with potato-chip crumbs he spotted a silver treasure chest, about seven inches wide, lined with purple velvet. Inside were a scatter of black-and-white capsules like the one Suzanne had lost in his bathroom. "What are those?"
"Private stock. House mix."
"Like the music?"
"A very mild accelerator. Keeps the party going. Like a second and third wind, in capsule form. If you don't like who you are, it'll help make you into someone else, for a while.''
Art recognized most of the other ambient drugs. He examined a capsule. "Not acid? Ecstasy?"
Price's ready grin was prepared. "Nothing so crude."
Art replaced the capsule in the box. "Maybe later."
A woman with platinum-blond bangs, wearing a ghostly white lace dress that tracked her every movement in a wisp of veils, leaned in to tap Michelle on the shoulder. She had very pale skin and brilliantly blue eyes, her lipstick red and glossy as fresh blood. "Bryan's locked in the bathroom and won't come out," she said.
"Price," Michelle said, wearily. "Please?"
"If I catch that hunk of gymsteak shooting up, he'll never get the fucking needle out of his esophagus." Price's expression had not changed; only his eyes darkened with possibilities. He clapped both hands down on Art's shoulders. It was almost a hug. "Attendez. You'll want to know where the downstairs can is, anyway."
Before Price could tear him free, Michelle put
her hand alongside Art's face, almost tenderly, "It's nice to get a look at you at last, strange as that may sound. Stick around; you might find something interesting, yes?" When she passed behind him, he felt her high breasts brush his shoulder blades.
The coquettish Estelle-Leigh was still gyrating on top of the speaker; Art caught a whiff of honeydust as he and Price passed. A couple of people tried to waylay Price, who sloughed them off with a terse, "Not now." As they stepped over a couple on the hallway floor sharing a monstrous Jamaican spliff, Price extracted a privacy key from a ring on a chromium chain at his belt. He knocked three - times on the bathroom door. "You better not be taking a dump in my sink, Bryan, ‘cos I'm coming in." He jacked the door in one smooth motion.
Their objective was sitting on the lip of the claw-footed tub, fully clothed, alone, hair lank and damp. He jerked his head up when they entered. His face was crimson and puffy; his eyes rubbed bloodshot. Tears glistened. He held a wad of paper towel in one fist.
"Okay, what's the crisis?" said Price, indicating that Art should shut the door.
The man on the tub was bare-chested inside a leather dress jacket, obviously an iron pumper who worried about things like water weight or percentage of body fat. The veins on his neck were corded to pencil thickness and he looked distantly Indian. There were tears on his pecs, his washboard abs, his thighs, as though his head had sprung a serious leak. He made groping motions in the air before Price, incapable of direct explanation. He husked a breath or two and tried really hard.
"Price, man, it's all so… sad," he said. "I feel like I wanna kill myself; it's the only decent… the only way I can…"
"Calm it down a notch, cowboy. What's sad?" Price squatted in front of him, hands on his legs, almost paternal. That's it, thought Art: He's acting like a dad, a father confessor.
"I-I just… hurt so many fuckin' people." The man sucked a sobbing gasp of air. "I mean, I don't mean to, but I hurt everybody… the world doesn't fuckin need me, y'know? The world has got enough fuckin problems."
"Who did you hurt?" said Price.
"Nobody, tonight… I mean my whole life, I just use people up, I hurt them, and I don't care that I hurt them, I don't even know I'm doing it, and when I do know, I don't ever care… oh, Christ, I feel like shit, man." He slammed the heel of his hand into the bridge of his nose and pressed hard; more tears flowed. For this man, it was like acid rivuleting out of his soul, to distill. "I hurt… I hurt Cherilyn, I mean, the day I dumped her I took all the money out of her wallet, and she called and I never bothered with her, because I had used her up. I totally dissed her; all done. I hurt Suze, fuck, man, I can't believe that I'm such a blackened fuck that I actually hit her, but I have to believe it, because I know I did it on purpose."
Art was almost startled into recoiling. He was looking at Suzanne's dreaded ex, the Asshole, the Bry-Guy, crying his eyes out with remorse, definitely not playing the role of callous abuser and taker of advantages. This guy was nearly prostrate with sorrow.
"I have nothing in my life, man," said Bryan, his respiration hitching. "I take all this shit and never give anything back. Just have a good time, have fun, and wait to die. All I do for other people is make their lives worse; do you know how much that fuckin hurts?"
"I hear you," said Price, softly, his tone confidential and succoring. "But who's in control of all that? You are. Who's responsible? You are. You need to apologize or make amends, do it. If you can't, then cauterize it and try to do better next time. But you're not worthless, man. I wouldn't've invited you here if you were worthless; I don't know any worthless people."
Bryan sounded like a lost child. "What do I do?" It was hopeless, a rhetorical question.
"What you do is nothing, right now. What you do is relax, because you're all atwist, right now."
Art recognized Price's careful build and repetition, his voice level as a salt flat, eye contact rock hard, all the mannerisms used by someone into hostage negotiation. He was boring right into Bryan 's psyche, with the sure aim of a surgeon, and talking him down.
"You listening?" Price used his knuckle to bring Bryan 's chin up sq Bryan could not avoid his gaze. "It's good that you're actually listening, paying attention to me, because I wouldn't want to feel like you were blowing me off, or ignoring me, because that would be what you hate the most about yourself, am I right?"
Bryan nodded.
"Let's work together on this, Bryan. Open."
Bryan dutifully opened his mouth. Price inserted one of the black-and-white capsules.
"Swallow," Price said, and Bryan did. Price then filled his cupped hands with water from the sink and extended his hands toward Bryan in an eerie form of communion. "Drink."
Bryan drank, almost gratefully.
"Now I'm going to take you upstairs, where you can lie down a bit, and I want you to do two things for me. Don't think about everything you've done wrong; we all fuck up. Think about what you want, how you really want people to perceive you, and nap on that. The other thing is, no crying. That stops now. Okay?"
Bryan nodded again, done with words that could not serve him. "I think I got this one," Price said to Art as he helped Bryan up and slung a brotherly arm around the bigger man's shoulders. "You can take a piss now, if you want."
***
When Art emerged from the bathroom, hands still damp, face rinsed as though to cleanse away the drama he'd just witnessed, a stranger lassoed him in a wobbly, buddy-buddy embrace just short of a headlock. It was a woman with a snake tattooed on the upper hemisphere of her capacious right breast, its body winding downward with serpent's promises.
"Babydoll, I want to go now, okay?" She looked around the living room like someone dismayed at a faulty fence on a gator pit. "I feel too much danger, and I want to go, and I don't know if you if you're ready yet, but-''
Michelle was standing in the alcove, arms folded, one brow arched, her lips hinting at a private smile. "Back off, Maureen. You need to go cuddle up to Jeremiah before he starts masturbating in public over you. That's your mission. Now disengage from our friend, here.''
Maureen cast her eyes down, submissively, and retreated into the throng.
"Had enough?" Michelle said to Art. "Please say no."
Art shook his head indecisively, almost the way Blitz would. "I haven't been to a party in a bit of a while."
"Well, come on, then." She offered her arm. "Head-on's always the best way."
Suzanne had been right about Michelle. Whenever she crossed a room, all eyes tended to follow her. Whom she was with. Whom she was talking to, or not. Price was not in the immediate vicinity, and a microscopic quadrant of Art's civilized mind asked him, Just what the hell do you think you're doing?
"That somewhat frazzled-looking young man at the main bar is Kyle."
Art's brow furrowed. "That bar wasn't there before."
"Oh, really? You sure you just didn't notice it?" Her eyes said she was deciding whether to tease him.
"The space is different." The bar was a Rat Pack wet dream of onyx surfaces and mirrored glass; it was almost impossible not to see.
"I forgot your calling. Anyway, you're right. It comes up out of the floor. The whole thing elevators up from an apartment that's the only room on the lower level. Good for catering because it has its own kitchen and doesn't clutter things up here." She cast her gaze about the room; people looked to see what she was looking for, trying to anticipate her, perhaps to grab a chance at pleasing her, or merely getting her to acknowledge them. "Now, that shorter woman dressed identically to Kyle-black shirt and pants, red bow tie-see her?"
"Yes." The woman was fussing over several sizzling dim sum platters whose aroma gradually thickened the air.
"Her name is Elpidia. Offhand, I'd say either Kyle got more than he bargained for during his break, or Elpidia met someone new."
"Maybe they were just napping," said Art. "Keeping this crowd lubricated would exhaust me."
"Ah, but look at them. She looks battened, ful
ly fueled. Her eyes are dark and deep and you can just smell she had some kind of nourishing sex. He looks tapped, as though half his blood got drained. It was interesting to watch them circling each other last night, all the while doing their jobs. They're never less than professional. God knows where Price finds help like this."
Art imagined the two of them logging a full shift, then riding their Dean Martiny lift down to paradise in some stuffy servants' quarters. He visualized the cocky Kyle yanking off his ridiculous, servile neck ornament and making his move on sweet little Elpidia… who then had nearly eaten him alive.
The main room, the interior of the turret Art had seen outside, was radiused into concentric descending circles, like steps, carpeted and arrayed with cushions. Flat surfaces of one-square-foot laminate were laid in every so often to serve as tables; most featured electronics mounted into the risers, including a series of small television monitors interspersed so that no matter where one was sitting, a screen was visible across the circle. The whole setup bellowed a crude Las Vegas anti-charm, which instantly reminded Art of a Playboy magazine passion pit.
"It is a bit much," Michelle said, apparently reading his mind. "But it came with the house.''
An iron staircase curled up toward the mezzanine level, where the turret was fitted with an Industrial Revolution-style catwalk that covered three-quarters of the circumference. This was to access a library that no longer existed; Art saw the built-in shelves, but precious few books. Some guests sat up there, dangling their legs through the wrought interstices. Higher up, a ring of storm-glass windows, original to the structure, completed the lighthouse effect. The upper floor followed the L-shape of the two wings, with the elbow of the hallway opening into a railed balcony that overlooked the turret. Just seeing the clash of styles and motifs in this place made Art itch to redesign it. Apart from several backbreakingly huge abstracts hung on the main interior walls, there was very little actual decoration; the whole joint was a big, hollow tomb of lavish waste and gimmicked gimcrackery.
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