THUGLIT Issue Eighteen

by Michael Pool

  Then there’s an earthquake and the grinding of metal against metal.

  It’s quiet. Can’t feel my right side. I taste pennies. I blink and the road is out my window, cold against my hot face. It’s raining…no…too warm for that. I turn my head the best I can. Instant pain—knives in my neck and the back of my head. I see Matt. His eyes still open, still clear, but staring right through me. Blood drips from his mouth and lands on my cheek. He’s bent over the dashboard where the steering wheel should be. The white leather of his seat is stained from headrest to lumbar support in deep, dark red.

  The pain fades away and I almost laugh when it all hits me, but I can’t—my mouth won’t listen to my brain. I want to move my arms, to shift in my seat, but my body’s about as cooperative as my mouth. I listen to the cars as they pass by. Count them off until I hear them stop and there are footsteps. Someone calls out, but we can’t answer—not anymore.

  Neil’s email is still on my lap. Stuck against my thigh—a wet, red, X keeping it there. Stevie Wonder starts singing through static and I close my eyes. I hope Lisa got my email. Hopefully, that will clear things up.

  Shadows of the Mouse

  by Garnett Elliott

  Manero reclines in the highest tower of the Enchanted Castle, watching tourists mill under the sun-shot Anaheim haze.

  The little turret's crammed with a bank of closed-circuit monitors and former LAPD officers, the latter sweeping the crowds below with Armalite AR-50's, alert for any suspicious activity in this—the Cheeriest Place on Earth.

  "Eyes on. Got a lone male with a plastic bag, Future Land concession line."

  "ID?"

  "Running. Track him, meantime."

  "Roger."

  The AR's scope winks as it follows.

  All this, Manero reflects, so some toddler can get dizzy in a giant teacup. He's sipping espresso from the tower's hard-pressed illy machine. Everyone here sips espresso. Maximum caffeination, minimum urination.

  The phone next to his ergo chair rings. It's a landline, got a cord and everything, and the tone has been carefully muted so no one startles and takes a head off a thousand yards away. Manero picks up the phone and hustles it into a supply closet heady with the scent of gun oil. Closes the door.

  "Hello?"

  "It's you." There's a sigh on the other end that could be relief. A chair creaks. Manero imagines a corner office with a view only slightly less breathtaking than the Castle's.

  "More trouble, huh?"

  "She's pushing it. She's so pushing it."

  "Another sex tape?"

  "Worse. This is…run a search. See how fast it comes up."

  Manero slips a more modern phone from his pocket. Pecks in the name 'Skyye Salinas' on a search engine and wades through the official sites. There. A blog called Maraschino Paradise. "I think I found it." The arbitrary content warning comes up, and then…

  Pearlescent caverns. The pink stipple of shaved flesh.

  "She's blogging about her vagina, for Christ's sake."

  "Humble of her." Manero scrolls. "She used a pretty invasive camera, for some of these shots."

  "It's got to stop."

  "Slap a Cease and Desist on her. Sue for breach of contract, behavior unbecoming an Enchanted Kingdom employee. Something like that."

  "Already talked to the legal snakes. She's eighteen, so she can post pictures of her hoo-hoo if she wants. As for contracts, she's in the middle of renegotiations right now."

  "Which is why she's pushing it."

  "Exactly. Holding us hostage for an extra two mil."

  There's a buzz of excited voices outside the closet. Facial recognition software has made the Lone Bagman. No criminal record, but he has an Arabic surname. One of the ex-LAPD is lecturing about non-metallic explosive devices.

  "Manero," the voice says, "I want you to handle the renegotiations. Personally."

  He braces himself as he rides the tiny elevator down to ground level. Out through the security door, the tower's concealed entrance/exit, and he's wading through shoals of park-goers. It's impossible not to feel nihilistic in a SoCal crowd. Only a matter of time, he figures, before one of the snipers goes futz-o and starts mowing down the sheep they're supposed to protect.

  On the way to employee parking, he spots what surely must be a sign. A tweener girl, bored or stoned, eating pale blue cotton candy. She's wearing a Skyye Salinas t-shirt. It's from several years back, when Skyye's sitcom Way to Go was pulling in eighty-five million viewers worldwide. Making bank for the Mouse.

  That was before her auto-tuned faux-country album hit. And Way to Go vanished in spinoff land.

  Child stars as radioactive waste. Now he understands why.

  Hostile press already has Skyye's Brentwood estate surrounded, but she never spends much time there anyway. Five bills to a certain cleaning lady at the Four Seasons yields better results: a wadded-up printout depicting a Vegas hotel, found in the wastebasket of Skyye's usual suite.

  One theme park to another.

  There's a flight leaving John Wayne for Vegas in fifty. He stops at his home on the way to get some things. 'Home' is a studio apartment, a cardboard armoire and a worn futon from a time when people still slept on futons.

  His significant other lies coiled in one damp corner. Simba, a Burmese python, knotty and lethargic from her last meal. She recently graduated to guinea pigs. He knows some velvet morning he'll wake in her embrace, waiting for him to exhale so she can tighten. A fitting end, really.

  The snake was his therapist's idea.

  About an hour from LA to Vegas, long enough to shudder up into the clouds and come angling down again. The metallic ding of slots paying off echoes as soon as he de-planes. His life's theme song: someone else getting lucky.

  A taxi drops him at the strip. He turns, squinting into the Nevada blue. Across the street looms the hotel from the wastebasket. The Caravel.

  It seems right at home next to the black glass pyramid. Some fantasy version of a seventeenth-century Spanish galleon, with too many decks and neon portholes. The sails double as giant projection screens. Flickering lasers advertise the floor show and Buccaneer's Buffet. But for all that, if the wind blew right, if the gilded anchor lifted, the whole thing looks like it might go scraping down Reno Avenue.

  Stepping into the lobby, he's aware of cameras under smoked glass domes. The concierge staff are all dressed like pirates. He's got a lanyard around his neck with a plastic badge, identifying him as EVENT STAFF—events being ubiquitous in Vegas. Despite the camouflage, he panics as he approaches the casino floor. It's the crowd. It's always the crowd. He pushes past a senior toting an oxygen bottle and beelines for a restroom, unsure if it's the right gender.

  There's a male attendant inside, hovering over a selection of combs, towels, and bottles of cologne, ready to proffer, to advise. Manero fixes him with a look. A by-product of chronic insomnia, he can give soul-chilling looks. The attendant's smile fades.

  Manero closes a stall behind him. Flimsy barrier, but already his breathing has started to slow. He makes a tactical decision and takes two forty-milligram propranolol tablets from his pocket.

  When the stall door opens again he's another person. The attendant blinks at the suaveness oozing out of him, an aggressive courtesy honed from years in the entertainment grind. He tries a spritz of travel-sized Goti, sniffs, and pockets the bottle. A pair of twenties slithers into the little man's hand.

  "I don't want to come across like a tourist here, buddy, but my wife insists there's some famous people in the hotel. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

  The badge seems to work with the help, but it won't protect him from security. And he knows they're there, nuzzling like sharks around the casino floor. He evades them with a sort of feral intuition.

  Looking lost, maybe a little buzzed, he wanders near the kitchens. A balding Filipino carries a tray heaped with tiger prawns. Sight of the curled orange shapes makes him stop—aside from junk food, Skyye only ea
ts shrimp. He falls in step behind the guy. They enter a service elevator, Manero careful not to make eye contact. Up seven floors and the door dings open. Filipino breaks left, Manero goes right for thirty paces down a lushly carpeted hallway, doubles back and finds the tray on the floor next to suite 707. 'The Captain's Cabin,' according to a brass plaque screwed into the door.

  He hesitates. Did the guy just knock and leave? What's his story going to be if this is the wrong suite?

  Improvise, improvise.

  Before his knuckles can touch the door, it opens a crack. A bloodshot blue eye peers out at an imposing height. Looks at the tray. Looks at him. Narrows.

  "You're not with the hotel."

  Manero grins. "I'm here to talk to Skyye. Settle her contract."

  "Where's the money?"

  "This isn't a drug deal, friend. If she agrees to the terms, signs, all I have to do is call the Mouse."

  "You don't have to be a dick about it."

  "Just ask her. Please."

  The door shuts. A moment later there's muffled conversation. Sharp words. The door cracks again, and two eyeballs appear this time. The second one's also blue, also bloodshot. Not as tall, though.

  "I know him," Skyye's voice says. "How'd you find us?"

  "Were you really trying that hard? Let me in and we'll talk."

  "Search him, Lee."

  A pair of muscled arms beneath a terrycloth robe reach out, pulling Manero into the smell of stale cigarettes and KY. He's shoved towards a bathroom the size of a small apartment. Pink marble cool against his face as Lee folds him over a sink, his free hand searching in brisk, professional movements.

  "Why would I be armed for a contract negotiation?"

  "Not weapons," Lee says. "Recording devices." Finished, he turns Manero around. Lee's been Skyye's personal bodyguard for the past eight months, well beyond the usual shelf life of her fuck-toys. Manero read the précis on him. Dishonorably discharged from the Corps. He'd punched a French photographer in the gut during Skyye's last visit to Cannes, causing a near-fatal internal hemorrhage. The Mouse's lawyers are still working on that one.

  "You should be careful wearing these," he says, giving the lanyard a tug. "Someone might strangle you."

  "It's breakaway. See the little clip?"

  "Make it fast. There's some camel-fucker from Dubai calling in a little bit."

  "Wants her in his harem?"

  Shrug. "Says he's a big fan of Way to Go. So yeah, probably a pervert."

  Skyye's chain-smoking in the main room. Enormous bay windows behind, making her a narrow silhouette against the Vegas skyline. The suite's a fucking pigpen. No staff in here for days. Plates piled up, stained sheets, clothes and towels in drifts on the floor. White-powder rails long as the Nazca Lines ghost a glass table. Red Bull cans. Skyye's not much for bathing, either.

  She's got earbuds in, bobbing her head to something. Laptop nearby, screen glowing with the lurid colors of Maraschino Paradise. Her unwashed hair's been dyed so many times it's turned a grayish-green.

  "Babe." Lee touches her shoulder. "Business, remember?"

  Her eyes focus. Somewhere between angry and incoherent. She slips one of the buds free. Harsh, syncopated noise spills out.

  Manero shakes his head. "She's down about fifteen pounds. We can't put her on camera like this."

  "You fucks made her bulimic in the first place."

  She kicks Lee's shin. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here."

  "Skyye," Manero says, "my boss sent me. He's ready to deal."

  "Was it the blog? Because I'm not going to stop. It's part of who I am."

  "About that—"

  "Here's the deal: I keep the blog. I get the extra money your tight-assed Armenian wanted to hold out on. And…I do another album."

  "Skyye—"

  "Not country, this time. Hip-hop. Also, I want a line of clothing."

  "You have a line of clothing."

  "For fucking thirteen-year-olds, yes. Starter bras and sequined shorts. I want something street, something couture." She pronounces it cooter.

  "Mr. Avakian authorized the money, but he didn't say anything about albums or clothes."

  "You tell him. Tell him he deals or the blog's going anal, next."

  "Whoa, there." Manero puts up his hands.

  "I'm dead serious."

  "Alright. I'll call him now, but I'll need some privacy." He takes the phone out of his pocket and heads for the bathroom without waiting for approval. Lee doesn't try to intercept. Once inside, he closes the door but doesn't lock it.

  The propranolol has kicked in strong now, so his fingers don't tremble as he slides out a length of braided monofilament from the lanyard. Lee didn't know how right he was.

  He puts his back to the wall alongside the door and waits.

  And waits.

  After a while, heavy footsteps approach. Authoritative knocks. "I don't hear any talking in there," Lee says.

  Manero's silent. He thinks of Simba.

  When he was nineteen, barely older than Skyye is now, he auditioned for the lead in a slasher film. They shot actual movies in LA back then. He'd passed the first casting, gelled his hair up into a pompadour, and waited outside the office of Aryeh Schenk, producer.

  The office door opened. A fat man ambled out, introducing himself as Mr. Schenk's personal assistant.

  "You look nervous, son. Are you nervous?"

  Manero admitted he was.

  "Well, don't be. Mr. Schenk loves Italian boys. Come in and make yourself comfortable."

  So he did. As this was the 80's, the office had pale neon on the walls and framed Nagel prints.

  "You understand how this works? You're gonna have to spread. That, or suck him off. Or both. Hope you wiped good, huh?" He rummaged in the desk, produced a small bottle of baby oil. "Slather some of that on. When he comes in, first thing he likes to see is the old red eye. It's a submission thing. You can talk about the actual part when he's finished."

  The fat man left. Manero debated his personal morals for all of fifteen seconds before anointing himself. Leaning over the desk, he fixed his attention on the drone of freeway traffic outside.

  He waited with jeans bunched around his ankles for forty-five minutes, and when the door finally opened there was a chorus of laughter.

  The fat man, of course, turned out to be Schenk.

  They gave the part to Johnny Depp.

  His foot's planted in the small of Lee's muscular back, pushing, while his thumbs pull with all his strength on the garrote. Lucky for him, Lee's only instinct is to try and dig his fingers under the tightening monofilament.

  Propranolol is a tactical risk. It calms by deadening the fight-or-flight reflex, and that means no adrenalin on tap. Like a method actor, he conjures the memory of Schenk for the rage he needs.

  Straining. He can glimpse Lee's face in the bathroom mirror. It's turning the same mottled purple as his own hands. Silent, except for the occasional grunt from Manero.

  Then…

  Lee's bladder goes. Warm piss all over the pink tiles. Sphincter too, but it wasn't the mess he was expecting. Small miracles.

  There's no faking the absolute limpness that spreads over Lee's torso, so he eases the body next to the toilet. Rubs his hands until his circulation comes back. He searches under the terrycloth and finds a knife strapped to one ankle. That's military training for you. It's an SOG with a six-inch blade—perfect.

  Before touching the handle, he takes a pair of surgical gloves hidden in his loafers and snaps them on.

  Skyye's still at her bay window perch, earbuds back in, looking semi-conscious as she taps at the laptop. He approaches with hands in his pockets.

  "Where's Lee?"

  "Taking a dump."

  "What'd the Armenian say?"

  "He's alright with a new clothing line, but I really had to push for the album. Do you have any Xanax? I'm kind of on edge right now."

  "Nightstand, first drawer."

  He turns so
she can't see the gloves. There's a half-empty scrip bottle under a thong, and he shakes out a handful. "What're you going to call the album?"

  "I got to think of fucking everything? I don't know yet. I'll ask my fan—"

  One latex hand around her neck. She tries to bite him as the other forces the Xanax past her teeth. Works the throat muscles to make her swallow, just like force-feeding a goose. Screams mmmph around his fingers.

  Out comes the SOG. A pass over the carotids.

  She pitches forward, letting out the last of her untalented essence.

  After that it's like assembling furniture. All emotion drained except paranoia. Lee's body proves the hard part. He ties the garrote into a noose, secures it to the shower fixture, and manages, after several tries, to prop him in the corner and get his nodding head through the loop. The ligature marks don't quite line up. Also, because of Lee's height, his feet still touch the tiles. Sort of like he leaned himself to death. Oh well.

  He squeezes the SOG's bloodied handle into a limp hand and gets a good set of prints.

  Back in the main room, he snaps on a new pair of gloves, hiding the stained ones in his shoe. Skyye has thoughtfully left the blog editor open on her laptop. He types out the final entry for Maraschino Paradise, careful to explain her suicide pact using a fifth-grader's grasp of diction. Posts.

  The hot-penny smell of all that blood is giving him a headache. He strips off his spattered slacks and shirt, both reversible. When he puts them on again he's dressed in stylish black.

  Appropriate.

  The flight to LAX is packed. So much so, he should be swimming through another panic attack. But thanks to two tiny bottles of whiskey, he's keeping his nerves at bay. Word must be flooding the net about the troubled starlet's last post by now. He wonders if they'll find the bodies before he touches down.