Face it, Belford is the safer bet all around. You have never actually approached Belford about a loan before, so you cannot automatically assume he would refuse. Besides, there are ways to soften him up. Conversation about your alleged future together, for example, never mind if the promises are vague. And something that might really throw open every duct in his oozing heart would be your delivery to him, safe and sound, of his AWOL macaque. To that end, you decide-as with a soapy sponge you flush a tiny tumbleweed of lint from your belly button (a side effect of sleeping in ones clothes)-that you must hasten to a store where you might make a substantial investment in Popsicles of the banana-flavored ilk.
Yes, you will load your freezer, and your friends freezers as well. You will reopen the transoms, yours and Q-Jos, that you closed after yesterdays unlawful entries, and upon each transom you will deposit a Popsicle as lure. You will position banana Popsicles on window ledges, where they will glisten like the teeth of heavy smokers; sow banana Popsicles about balconies, where they will glow like bug lights on a southern porch. Melting, they will perfume the neighborhood like one giant Harry Belafonte belch, and a certain little rascal, no more able to resist the musaceous nose-music than any model-building boy, will tarantella, yellow-lipped and sticky-furred, into your waiting trap.
With a final swipe of the sponge, you seal the self-addressed envelope between your legs. Then, toweled, powdered, creamed; dressed in gold-colored Christian Dior underwear, black medium-length wool skirt from Perry Ellis, and a navy blue Ralph Lauren sweater over a white silk shirt, you trot downstairs, only to be met at the front door by two very serious-looking uniformed policemen.
SIXTHIRTY A.M.
The first thing that crosses your mind is that the cops are here about Q-Jo: that shes in the hospital, in the morgue, in jail, in-Liar! Tell the truth, Gwendolyn. The first thing that crosses your mind is that there has been an audit at the disco, that Posner has jumped to conclusions, that without giving you an opportunity to explain, he has notified the SEC and called in the police. Only after those fears have jumped rope with your heart do you consider that there could be dire news about Q-Jo. In fairness, however, you utter no silent prayer that the authorities are here about her and not you. As it turns out, they are here about the Safe Sex Rapist.
The Safe Sex Rapist, so called because he wears a condom during every attack, has claimed twenty victims in the past thirty days. The pace of his raping is such that some Seattleites suspect it the work of more than one man (forgetting, perhaps, when they were young). The rich boys are frequently mentioned. Although the victims have been by no means exclusively homeless or poor, the rich boys have been mentioned by just about everybody except the mayor, city councilmen, and newspaper editors, who golf with the rich boys dads. At any rate, according to the cops at the door, the Safe Sex Rapist struck again last night, or rather early this morning, assaulting a late-shift nurse after she got off a bus on her way home from work. The rape, it seems, was interrupted in prog ress by a taxi driver, who gave chase in his cab when the attacker fled. Police joined in, and the rapist is believed to be cornered and hiding in your neighborhood.
Were asking everyone in the area, especially women, to stay inside with their doors locked until we flush this partridge, one of the officers says.
But its light out now, you protest, and Im just going to the store. Im just going to drive over to Queen Anne Thriftway.
Sorry, says the cop. Cant let you do that. This guys still around here, and hes dangerous.
Believe it, lady, says the other officer. Hell, the Thriftway parking lots where he abandoned his motor scooter.
SIXTHIRTY-THREE A.M.
Your heart trips on the jump rope and skins its elbows. Oh, Jesus, oh no, you mutter.
There a problem?
No. Yes. I mean, I know who it is.
What say?
The rapist. I know who he is.
Are you sure? How do you know him? He live here?
Look, its a long story. But its got to be him. It must be him. If I saw his vehicle I could say positively.
Cecil, the senior of the two officers says, why dont you flag Smokey and get him to drive you and her over to where the scooter is. Ill find the manager and have him warn the rest of the tenants here.
Owners, you correct him.
What?
Were owners in this building, not tenants.
Yeah, okay, lady, says Cecil. Come with me.
SIX THIRTY-NINE A.M.
The abandoned scooter, being loaded now into a police department van, is one of those fancy new sparkle and glitter Hondas, in a candy-apple color that your blush matches exactly, although without the metal flakes. Im sorry, you say. It doesnt take a detective to tell that you are less contrite than relieved, less relieved than embarrassed.
Its okay. We all make mistakes. Smokey produces a pad and pen. Whats the suspects name and address?
What suspect?
The guy you thought was the rapist.
But it isnt him.
You cant be certain of that. He coulda changed scooters.
From the patrol car radio, a voice slips the words, Car Forty-seven, between two slices of static.
Forty-seven.
Forty-seven, we got a report theres a monkey running loose, disrupting the sunrise service at Kinnear Park. You respond?
Negative, replies Smokey. No can do. Youre aware we got a ten-sixty in progress. Call animal control, for Christs sake.
Roger, Forty-seven.
Can you believe that? Taking us off a ten-sixty for a damn monkey?
I know who it is!
The rapist?
The monkey. I know that monkey.
The police officers look at each other and roll their eyes.
You dont understand. Its a friend. I mean, it belongs to a friend of—
Lady, says Cecil, I want you to get outta the car.
But, really, I -
Out! Right now. You bug anybody around here, Im running you into Harborview where you belong. Id run you in right now if I had the frigging time. He taps his partner. Lets roll, Smoke.
Barely have you slammed the door than Car 47, sirens bansheeing, lights star-spangled bannering, tears out of the Thriftway lot toward your once-thought-to-be-temporary neighborhood, leaving you to boil and bubble in a cioppino of outrage, humiliation, remorse, and one or two other all-too-familiar emotions.
SIX FIFTY-ONE A.M.
When the cashier invites you to have a nice day, you give her a look that leaves her wondering how a woman who just bought two dozen banana Popsicles could be in such a shitty mood.
Part of your foul disposition is due to the fact that now that you are in possession of a fair amount of monkey fodder, you are unsure how to distribute it. Apparently, AndrE has been amusing himself at the expense of the pious in Kinnear Park, but by the time you walked over there, both he and the worshippers would probably be gone, for the sun is shinnying up the eastern quadrant faster than a Peeping Tom up a sorority house drainpipe. Even were the Easter service still in progress, you hardly could stroll into its midst wagging yellow ice on a stick without attracting the wrong kind of attention, the kind that might bring Cecil and Smokey back into your life. Anyhow, rather than go chasing after AndrE, a proposition designed for futility and slapstick, it would be wiser to let him come to you. The problem here is that you cannot at this time return to your building, albeit a scant ten-minute walk, because your block is sealed off, two or more squad cars at every intersection. The path to Belfords is clear, however, and it soon becomes equally clear that since you had planned all along to seed his place with Popsicle bait, hoofing to Belfords is your only logical option.
On your way there, shivering ever so slightly in the morning chill, although the temperature is actually several degrees too warm for the optimum health of your cargo, you cannot help but puzzle over AndrEs reported presence at the sunrise service. Coincidence? An act of rebellion? Or was he drawn there because there is
some validity to this born again … ? No, no, no. Ridiculous. Animals, even intelligent animals-perhaps most especially intelligent animals-do not share mans pathetic need to socialize bliss, codify awe, pigeonhole the Mystery, and tame the Divine. For an ape, born twice is entirely redundant, since an ape gets it right the first time. At least, that is how Q-Jo has put it. Personally, you havent a clue in spiritual matters, but you do know, or deeply suspect, that a monkey who once mingled with aristocrats in Swiss ski resorts and movie stars on the French Riviera, would find the company of Seattle Lutherans drab, dour, and dorky beyond all belief.
SEVEN -TEN A.M.
As evidenced by an overturned cookie jar and an open freezer door, AndrE has stopped by home at least once in Belfords absence. Encouraged, you place three or four Popsicles in the freezer, and with the remainder of the first box, Hansel and Gretel a trail leading from the garage roof to the balcony to a broom closet in which, with a swift slamming of a door, a greedy little macaque could be surprised and contained. Satisfied, although scarcely overconfident-you are all too aware that the infamous simian jewel thief is nobodys fool-you take a seat in Belfords favorite armchair. Using a remote, you switch on the radio and tune it to KIRO so that you will be immediately informed when the manhunt in your neighborhood has ended. On the seven-fifteen report, you learn that the rapist remains at large somewhere in your quarantined block. You also learn, a moment later, that Dr. Yamaguchi has called a press conference for ten oclock, presumably, the announcer speculates, to explain his behavior last evening. As well he might. Good grief!
Thoughts of the sake-sodden scientist lead, like an abbreviated trail of synaptic Popsicles, to thoughts of Larry Diamond. Soon you yourself are shut in a closet, a closet of guilt. How close you came to officially accusing Diamond of serial rape, how eager you were to name his name! If those suspicions were unjustified, even irresponsible, could the same not be said for your willingness to lay Q-Jos disappearance at his feet? To some extent, it is his own fault for allowing lewd impulses to rule him, for forsaking decorum, for behaving like a nut and a goat. Nevertheless, he is ill and in pain-dying, for all you know-and you have wronged him. You have borne him false witness.
How badly do you feel about it? Not badly enough to confess and apologize. What the oversexed lunatic doesnt know wont hurt him. Yeah, but what if on some level he does know? Ever since hes been on the pad, whatever in marginal hell that is, hes had the ability to highjack dreams and burglarize thoughts. It seems to you, slumped in Belfords monkey-soiled chair, the second box of Popsicles thawing on your lap, that you ought either to have a talk with Diamond soon or else avoid him like the IRS for the rest of your life.
In less than nine minutes, a radio-dispatched taxi arrives at Belfords building. The driver looks bewildered and mutters in Sanskrit or Aramaic or Urdu when you say, Thunder House, please, but you straighten it out, and when, after no more than the usual amount of wrong turns and near collisions, he deposits you at the Thunderbird Bowl, you hand him, in lieu of a tip, the carton that is now rather soggy with a flowery yellow sweat. For your children, you say generously, thinking all the while that these undisciplined Third World types invariably have stockpiles of progeny.
To fair Natalie, who sashays out of Thunder House just as you approach its door, you-so olive of skin and iodine of eye-probably look like the cabdrivers wife.
SEVEN FIFTY-SEVEN A.M.
For several tense seconds, you and Natalie fire tracers into each others orbs, you thinking, espresso bimbo! Natalie thinking, prissy witch!-then you spin around and start back up the ramp.
Gwendolyn! Wait!
You slow down and glance over your shoulder, but you dont actually halt your retreat until you hear Diamond say, Natalie, I want you to meet Gwen Mati, the woman I inexplicably yet inescapably love.
Midway up the ramp, a trifle stunned, you stand with your hands on your hips, defiant but intrigued, curious whether the lecher and his tramp are sharing a joke at your expense, whether Diamond is toying with both you and Natalie, or whether he is sincere; and if he is sincere, whether he is in or out of his mind.
I guess that explains it, Natalie says.
A sharp twitch fishhooks the left corner of Diamonds appeasing smile.
Well, adds Natalie, at least now I know it wasnt me.
Distracted, says Diamond meekly.
For sure. Natalie sighs.
Dont let me interrupt anything, you say, your sarcasm an inch thicker than hers.
You already did, says Natalie. Hours ago. With a toss of her blond head, she propels herself up the incline. As she brushes past you, reeking, you think, like a cat-food casserole, she says, I hope you guys live happily ever after.
We promise, calls Larry cheerfully. You can count on us.
Look, I only wanted to give Mr. Diamond a brief message, you say, but the waitress proceeds expediently to a Japanese minicar that looks as if it has been kicked at least once by Godzilla, leaving you to face that philandering bastard at the foot of the ramp, who is now petitioning you with a grin that a sheep could use as a paperweight.
EIGHT-THIRTY A.M.
Timbuktu. The end of everybodys road. The capital of Nowhere. Geographys perennial avant-garde and the armchair travelers inevitable cul-de-sac. Timbuktu. Hometown of mystery, fugitivitys final refuge, remote crossroads where Obscurity runs into Exotica, and Daydream and Exile intersect. Timbuktu. The far of which there is no farther. Out there. Gone. Closer to the moon than to New Jersey. Rivaled by only Katmandu as the planets most musical city-poem. Tim-buk-tu. One of the phonetic wonders of the world. Great place to pronounce but you wouldnt want to live there.
No, indeed, you certainly wouldnt want to live there. You wouldnt want to spend a minute and a half in Timbuktu. You hadnt planned to spend much more than a minute and a half in Thunder House, for that matter-I was in the neighborhood, so I just stopped by to tell you that Yamaguchis holding a press conference at ten oclock-but Diamond had coaxed you inside (on the round heels of that coffee house strumpet) after finally convincing you that if you looked at his slides of Timbuktu, they might offer some insight into Q-Jos disappearance. He had led you into a spacious, dimly lit room, unfurnished except for a cushy butterscotch leather sofa but whose floors were covered with the richest, most gorgeous, and probably expensive Oriental carpets you had ever seen and whose walls were adorned with African masks, several presumably meant to represent frogs. He had set you on the sofa (which you sniffed for traces of Natalie), served you mint tea (drugged? you wondered), switched on the slide projector, and now has you thoroughly and unwillingly hypnotized-yes, hypnotized, there is no other word for it-by his strange manner of speaking.
Timbuktu. The last pure place. Isolation being the mother of purity. All men are jealous of Timbuktu because Timbuktu is removed from men, its the wholeness men have fractured, the sacred extreme theyve traded away. Like Hell, like Heaven, Timbuktu is a place in the brain, a place whose existence may be often doubted but never dismissed. Timbuktu. A constellation by which the imagination can navigate, the joker that haunts the map-makers deck.
EIGHT THIRTY-THREE A.M.
You may be hypnotized, but you arent gregarious. You maintain an aloof distance from your host, not even bothering to ask how he is feeling-he felt well enough to spend the night with Natalie, didnt he?-and when he illuminates the first slide and it appears to be an empty, limitless ocean formed by the melting of trillions of banana Popsicles, you snort, Huh. No wonder Timbuktus so hard to find, implying that theres no there there.
That, my dear, is the Sahara. Empty, yes; barren, yes; fierce and deceptively featureless, but, I assure you, unforgettable.
Yeah, I suppose. If you like beige.
Diamond moves on to the next slide, which is virtually the same. As vast as it looks in this picture, this is merely a sample. You could fit the entire United States, including Alaska, into the Sahara and have room left over for Q-Jos groceries.
All that sand. What a waste o
f real estate.
Its as much stone as it is sand, believe it or not. And twice in its history it was covered by water. Frogs and fishes used to swim in there, Gwendolyn. Turtles and crocodiles. Their skeletons are all over the place.
How nice.
When the great deserts and the great oceans get bored, they just switch places. Fortunately for us, it doesnt happen every Saturday night. They have a lot in common, the deserts and the seas. For our purposes, short-term and long-term, the sea is more important, but I do have a fondness for the desert. It shows us how beautiful the Earth would be if men werent on it. The Sahara may be the only place left that we havent fucked up. When you look at it, you get an idea what the planet was like before our ancestors hopped out of the soup, and what itll look like when weve hopped back in. Metaphorically or literally. More tea?
Thank you, no. Timbuktu, is it in that desert somewhere? Subconsciously, you are wishing he would revive the hypnosis.
Not yet. It will be. He brings up yet a third view of parched basins, cinder cones, yellow dunes.