by Jeff Lindsay
I know a great deal about many things, but I will cheerfully admit that couture is not one of them, and I did not think the lobby of the Gusman was the place to learn. So I mustered my most commanding attitude and put a hand on her arm and pulled gently. “Let’s go inside,” I said. “You can see for yourself.”
Rita dug both feet into the carpet and did not budge, and a look of alarm spread across her face. “Everybody? My God, I don’t think I can—”
I tugged a little harder. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll introduce you to Robert Chase.”
If I had thought Astor overreacted to Robert, it was only because I hadn’t seen her mother’s response yet. Rita turned bright red, and she began to tremble, and for the first time ever, she had trouble getting out even one word. “Ro, Ro, I real,” she stammered. “Is— You—Rob … Robert Chase is here? And you …?”
I watched her performance with annoyance. In all the time I had known Robert, he had revealed nothing to indicate he deserved to be shown even the mildest kind of respect—and here was Rita falling into a weak-kneed reverent trance at the mere thought of being in his presence. And I was pretty sure I had told her Robert would be here, so there was really no excuse at all for her collapsing into a drooling coma that threatened to ruin the Gusman’s carpet. Would she be less nervous if I told her Robert was gay?
On the plus side, in her weakened state she was in no condition to resist; I tugged once more on her arm, and she stumbled forward. “Come,” I said. “Miracles await within.” And I led her through the lobby and inside the theater.
I had been given a pair of seats only two rows back from the stage, in the center section and on the aisle. Whether it had been the network’s idea or Captain Matthews’s, I was supposed to be seated right next to Robert. I suppose it had been set up that way so the cameras would find the stars sitting happily next to Real Police People. Whatever the reason, it made introducing Rita to Robert almost unavoidable, but as we came down the aisle toward the stage, Robert was nowhere in sight. But as we approached our row, he came out of the door where Jackie and Debs had disappeared, and strode toward us, smiling and waving at the crowd.
It had been my naive thought to perform a simple intro as we slid into our seats, and then get on with life. But once again, I had reckoned without the abject reverence of Rita’s Robert worship. The moment she saw him she stopped dead, went pale, and started to tremble again. “Oh, no,” she said, which seemed an odd thing to say if she really wanted to meet him. “Oh, my God, it’s him, it’s him.…” She started to bounce up and down on the balls of her feet as she said, “Oh, my God, oh, God, oh, God!” and similar evocations of a deity that, as far as I could tell from brief acquaintance, had absolutely nothing to do with Robert.
Around me in the theater I could see heads turning toward us, some amused and some curious. It is true that I had liked the reflected attention of the crowd as they adored Jackie, but this was very different; I smelled amusement, condescension, even scorn in the many looks that came our way, and this I did not like. I pushed Rita forward once more and she went, with short and jerky steps. I finally got her to our seats, although she refused to sit. Instead, she just stood there jiggling and staring at Robert, until I realized that if I didn’t do something we would be standing in the aisle all night.
So I stepped into the aisle and waved to him, and he came at us, smiling. “Robert,” I said. “This is my wife, Rita.”
Robert held out a hand. “Hey, terrific!” he said. “Really great to meet you!” Rita just stood there with her face frozen into a numb and staring mask. I hoped she wouldn’t actually drool.
After an awkward pause, Robert reached over and took her hand. “Wow, I can see where Astor gets her looks,” he said, shaking Rita’s limp hand. “Terrific kids you’ve got, Rita.”
Rita spoke at last. “Oh, I ahaha,” she said. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe— I am such a big fan of— Oh, God, it’s really you!”
“Well, I think it is,” Robert said with an easy grin. He tried to drop her hand—but now, even though she hadn’t been able to reach forward to shake hands with him, Rita clamped onto Robert’s hand in a desperate, sweaty death grip. “Um,” he said, and he looked at me.
“Rita,” I said, “I think Robert would like his hand back.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, and she flung his hand away and jumped back, landing firmly on my toes. “I’m so sorry, so sorry; I just—”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Robert said. “Great to meet you, Rita.” And he smiled at her and then pushed past us and sank gratefully into his seat.
Rita stared for a moment longer, in spite of the way I prodded her in the back, and I finally said, “Shall we sit down now?”
“Oh!” she said, and she jumped like she had been shocked. “But I can’t possibly— You sit next to him; it’s only— My God, I couldn’t possibly!”
“All right,” I said, and I slid into the seat right next to Robert. A moment later, Rita remembered how to sit, too, and she sank bonelessly into the seat beside me.
I sat there and watched Rita fidget for several minutes; she would start to settle down and then glance at Robert and begin to blush and twitch again. I tried to ignore it, but her spasms of adoration shook my seat, too. I looked to my left, where Jackie and Deborah would be sitting. They weren’t back yet; probably still sipping beer and mingling with other celebrities in Renny’s dressing room. I hoped he would keep his shirt on.
My seat quivered and I glanced back at Rita. Her left leg was jumping up and down in a nervous and probably unconscious twitch. I wondered whether she would turn normal again when the show started. Renny would probably have to be very funny to take her mind off sitting so close to Robert the God. I hoped Renny was hilarious. But what had he said to Robert—that he didn’t do comedy; he did social commentary? Could that possibly be funny enough to stop Rita’s convulsions? Could someone with a Passenger really be funny at all? I mean, I am well known for a dry wit—but I couldn’t keep a full theater in stitches.
Still, a real TV network believed in Renny enough to give him this special. Of course, that same network had cast Robert in a starring role—but they had cast Jackie, too, so I guess that made it a fifty-fifty chance. And who knows? Anything could happen. Maybe he would even make me laugh. I didn’t think so, but stranger things have happened—many of them to me. After all, I was married, had children, and everyone thought I was wonderful.
There was a burst of gaudy music from the sound system; a cheerful-looking young man came out onstage and plucked the microphone from the stand. “Heeeeeyyyyy—Miami!” he called out in a happy foghorn voice, and for some reason the audience cheered enthusiastically.
He went on to tell us all that we were filming tonight, which I already knew, and he told us to turn off our cell phones, don’t take flash pictures, and remember to laugh a lot. He said one or two other things that I think were supposed to be funny, and then called out, “Oooo-kay! Enjoy the show!” And he stuck the microphone back on the stand and strode offstage to wild applause.
A moment later, the lights went down, the noise of the crowd trickled to a whisper, and the announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen—Mr. Renny … Boudreaux!”
TWENTY-FOUR
RENNY LET THE APPLAUSE BUILD, AND BUILD, AND THEN BUILD a little more until the audience climbed to its feet and yelled and stomped and the old theater began to shake. Then he slouched out onto the stage three steps and stopped, staring at the audience with clear disapproval. The cheering got louder; Renny shook his head and walked to the microphone as the laughter grew and mixed with the cheers. He took the microphone from its holder, turned front, and just stared at the audience.
More laughter, more cheering; Renny just kept scowling. And at the exact moment when the crowd noise started to ebb, he called out, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?!” and we were off again into a riotous rollicking sea of glee.
Again, he timed it perfectly, and at just t
he right moment he said, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong—you’re stupid!” Oddly enough, this got a huge laugh, which seemed to make Renny mad, and he yelled, “I’m serious!” and the laughter got even louder, until Renny held up a hand and, when the noise died down a little, he said, “Sit the fuck down!”
I realized with a small shock that I was standing along with everyone else, and as I sat down, everyone else did, too. Renny waited for it to get very quiet, and then he began to speak. He mentioned the pilot we were shooting and introduced Robert and then Jackie, and as she stood to acknowledge the applause, I saw Deborah looking alertly around the room, bodyguard style. I remembered that I was supposed to be protecting Jackie, too, so I turned and pretended to search for any sign of trouble. There was none, of course. Jackie sat down safely, and Renny pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket. He scowled at it and then looked up.
“I’m supposed to say thank you to the cops here in Miami.” He shook his head. “That make any sense to you? Me—saying thank you to cops? But Big Ticket said please, and they’re paying for this shit, so … Thank you, cops.” He glanced at the crumpled paper. “Hey, Captain Matthews, you out there?” The captain stood up with a modest and manly smile on his face, and waved at the crowd to polite applause. “Yeah, I just asked if you’re there, Captain,” Renny said. “I didn’t say, stand up and steal my fucking spotlight.” And he smiled for the first time. “Hey, that’s right—first time I can say fuck to a cop—and he’s a captain, too. Hey, Captain Matthews! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
Renny waited for the laughs to die down and then he began to talk about Miami: Miami traffic, Miami food, the variety of people here—and every so often when he got a big laugh for some outrageously cynical observation, he would pause, glare at the audience, and call out, “I’m serious!” Apparently this was his tagline, the words he was famous for, like Steve Martin’s “Excuse me!” and every time he said it, half the crowd chanted, “I’m serious!” along with him.
And he really was serious; he was just very funny about it. He talked about serious issues and made the crowd look at them in a new way, a way that was provocative and funny at the same time.
He tore into politics in a fashion that would have to be called carnivorous, and that led to public education. “You all cut the funding to public schools. Take away all the money for teaching your own damn kids—and then you complain because all the doctors are from India! You rather have an American doctor who went through your public schools, and now he’s so fucking stupid he thinks Moby-Dick is a social disease?
“And then you say hey! We can fix the schools—with a lottery! And all the money will go to public schools! And the lobbyists get ahold of it, and now some of the money goes to the schools. And then the politicians step in, and all of a sudden, a portion of the profits goes to the schools. And what you’ve done, now it’s not just about funding—you’ve turned your kids’ education into a lottery. And you know how that works, right? One outa ten million is a winner, everybody else is shit out of luck.
“I’m serious!
“And who gets most of the losing tickets, huh? Yeah, that’s right, it’s the black man. Same old shit. You all think oh, everything changed now, ’Cuz we elected a black president, but it’s still hard as hell to be a black man in America. Especially since I fucking hate basketball …!
“But it could be worse,” he went on. “I might be gay.” He peered out into the audience and said, “Show of hands—how many faggots we got here tonight?” Believe it or not, a few hands went up, but Renny shook his head. “Come on, man, I know there’s more of you—I can see your shoes.” He shook his head again and waited for the laugh to die. “Yeah, being gay today, that’s gotta suck.… I mean, the rest of y’all—Give ’em a break, all right? You think it’s icky, that’s fine—you don’t have to watch. But really—what the fuck do you care who somebody else fucks? And if they like fucking ’em so much they wanna marry ’em, what the fuck do you care?” He made a solemn face and said, in a glutinous voice, “ ‘Oh, but Renny, it’s in the Bible.’ ” Renny snorted and shook his head. “Shit, yeah, it’s in the Bible; I looked it up. Any of you motherfuckers done that …? I didn’t think so. Well, I did. Yeah, it’s in the Bible. It’s right there, next to where it says you can’t have a round haircut and you can’t eat shrimp. And I can see some round fucking haircuts out there. And how many of you faggot bashers eat shrimp? ’Cuz if you think God wants you to piss on gay people, you gotta give up that shrimp cocktail, too, sparky.… I’m serious!”
A couple of rows behind me a loud voice called out, “Faggot!” Renny looked right at the man and smiled. “Isn’t that nice? See what happens when you give a beer to a man with a tiny dick?”
The crowd laughed, but the heckler wasn’t done. He yelled out again, even louder, “You’re a faggot!”
And Renny smiled and said, “You really think I’m a faggot, why don’t you just suck my dick, and if I like it—damn, you were right. And if I don’t like it—at least you got some action tonight.”
The crowd gave Renny quite an ovation, and the heckler slumped back into his seat as Renny moved on. And I suppose it wasn’t really a remarkable exchange, no more than the kind of routine put-down that happens every night, every place a comic stands in front of a crowd. But for me, it was very memorable—not for the high quality of the sparkling wit, but for something very different.
Because as Renny’s eyes moved over me to focus just over my head at the heckler, I felt the hair go up on my neck, and deep inside Castle Dexter an alarm began to toll as my Passenger whipped up into High Alert and began to hiss warnings at me.
And as Renny focused on his heckler and crushed him, I saw the Thing behind his eyes, the Thing I thought I might have seen, and now there was no doubt, none at all. Above all the noise of the crowd I heard the sibilant roar of the huge Dark Thing that reared triumphantly from the deep shadows behind Renny’s smile. And I watched it uncoil and flare up into its great shadowy length, and reach its long and sharp claw at the heckler, and it was there for all the world to see, and although no one else did see it, I saw it and I knew.
A Passenger. No doubt about it.
I don’t know how or why, but I always know it when I see it. I always have. And there was no doubt now, none at all: Renny had a Dark Passenger, just like me.
Renny moved on, and I am sure the rest of his show was every bit as funny and filled with savage insight, but I did not notice. I was lost in a train of thought that took me far away down the tracks, and I would not have noticed if Renny set himself on fire.
At first I merely thought about the fact that Renny was a monster, just like me. But that led me on to thoughts that were far loftier, and much more to the point. Because Renny had a Passenger. I didn’t know how he managed its care and feeding, but he had one. And if he could survive, and even flourish in Hollywood … why couldn’t I?
I pictured it in my imagination: Dexter lounging by the pool in Bel Air, watching the shadows grow deeper as the sun drifted down into the Pacific Ocean and a slow fat moon began to creep up into the sky, and Dexter feels the old Happy Night thrill begin to take him over, and he rises from his poolside perch and with his customary care he pads into the large and airy house on his predator’s feet and reaches for his ready-packed bag of toys and tools and away he slides into a night that is just as dark and welcoming, no matter that the sun sets, instead of rises, in the water.
It could work. There was no reason it shouldn’t. And I could not shake the idea that I would be far happier on that western shore, in a land of new opportunity, a fresh panorama of unexplored darkness.
But of course … I had not actually been invited. And there was no reason to think I would be. Jackie certainly had her own life in California, with her own friends and routines and security measures, and aside from one quick kiss, she had given me no indication that I would ever be a part of that life. If I was logical about things, I had to admit that mos
t probably, when the pilot was finished shooting here, she would thank me, hug me, and return to the West Coast, leaving Dexter behind as no more than an occasional fond memory.
And no matter how much I wanted it to be more than that, I couldn’t make that happen, and I couldn’t even say what that “more” would be.
So as Renny’s performance wound on to its no doubt hilarious conclusion, it was a somewhat Disheartened Dexter who finally came back to his grumpy senses as he realized that everyone around him was leaping to their feet and applauding madly. And because the First Principle of the Harry Code is to fit in, Dexter stood and clapped, too.
Rita stood next to me, clapping with manic enthusiasm. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and a very big smile was plastered on her face, a smile like I had never seen before, joy and thrill mixed together with excitement. She looked ecstatic, as if she had just gotten a glimpse into a world of magical beauty. I am sure the show was enjoyable, but Rita seemed transported to another plane. I had sat beside her on the couch and watched TV with her every night for years, and never suspected that the world of entertainment and its denizens were so important and enthralling to her. I couldn’t imagine how anyone with a three-digit IQ could possibly be so mesmerized—but of course, I knew Renny and Robert much better than she did.
And when the applause finally trickled to a halt, she still stood there, staring at the stage, as if she was looking at a spot where a miracle had just happened. It wasn’t until Robert tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Dex—I gotta get going,” that she finally stopped beaming at the empty stage and went back into shock.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh my— Dexter, Mr. Chase is …” And she collapsed into silence, blinking and blushing.
“Just Robert,” he said, predictably, and he smiled at her. “And can I call you, uh …?”