Still, what if you did follow him to Timbuktu? What if you thumbed your little Anglo nose at Posner, the disco, the SEC, at the entire economic situation, and took off to the ends of the earth? What if you really did?
With that thought, a laugh breaks loose. It is a short laugh, but rather loud, and since another one is pressing to follow on its heels, you glance around to ascertain that nobody on this inglorious little mixed-up street of Norwegian cottages and marine metal fabricators has overheard you. Instantaneously, the ball of chuckles dissolves-for there, directly across the street from you, parked in front of one of those cheesy Snoose Junction clapboards, is Q-Jos Geo Storm.
TEN-FIFTEEN P.M.
As noiselessly as a paraplegic cricket, you steal out of your car and over to Q-Jos. The Geo is empty. Her body is not slumped in its seats, and there is no way she would fit in its trunk, probably not even if she were dismembered. You look up and down the street. The industrial buildings are deserted, and of the half-dozen cottages, two are dark, four faintly aglow with the photonic frost of television. It seems safe enough to try the door.
Not surprisingly, it is unlocked: these days in Seattle, as Q-Jo is well aware, to lock ones car is to issue an invitation to have ones windows smashed. A rush of stale tobacco stink smacks your nostrils. Nothing else. No note, no remnant of clothing, nothing beyond an ashtray overflowing with ill-shaped butts and a wadded-up wrapper from a meatball sub to indicate that the vehicle is not owned and operated by a robot. Maybe Sherlock Holmes might find a clue here, but for you the search is fruitless.
Quietly, you return to the Porsche. When you get home, you will telephone the police and report the whereabouts of the Geo. Meanwhile, its discovery has struck a note of optimism, if for no other reason than it has convinced you once and for all that Diamond is not responsible for Q-Jos disappearance (maybe absence is a better word). Diamond might be eccentric, but he isnt stupid. He would hardly harm a woman and then allow her car to sit a block away from Thunder House.
With that in mind, you drive off for your meeting with Belford Dunn.
TEN THIRTY-FOUR P.M.
Honikins! Whereve you been?
As arranged, Belford is waiting for you at your apartment. He is a trifle agitated.
I told you I had to run an errand.
At this hour? On Sunday night? I was worried.
I was looking for Q-Jos car. And-I found it.
No fooling? You did? Where?
Oh, over in Ballard.
But how did you know where to look?
Just a hunch. I found AndrE for you, didnt I? Im a regular detective. You give him a peck on the cheek. Now, loosen your tie and relax. Put on some music. Im going to report this to the police, and then Ill be with you.
Easier said than done. You spend more than ten minutes negotiating a bewildering electronic labyrinth before you reach a living human being, only to be told that the bureau of missing persons (meaning the white-haired investigator and the iguana woman who fronts for him) is closed and that you should call back after nine tomorrow morning. Your argument that the situation could be serious, the discovery of the car significant, falls on steel ears.
Frustrated and fed-up -could public services be a whole lot worse in Timbuktu?-you slam down the receiver and storm off to the bathroom. There, you wash your face, apply a fresh patina of chic, and analyze the immediate state of affairs. Undoubtedly, Belford will insist on discussing the Q-Jo situation; and once that subject is exhausted, he will have questions about AndrE, about, for example, the methods employed to pacify him, the specific Bible verses read to him (how and why were they selected), and what steps need be taken to insure that he does not fly the coop again (is the monkey completely trustworthy, do you think Belford has failed him, etc.). All this could gobble the better part of an hour, and you simply lack the patience for it. You will, in fact, scream if you have to go through it, and a screaming fit at this juncture would probably not promote your agenda. Thus, with a higher purpose ultimately in mind, you remove your outer garments and return to the living room in your underwear.
TEN FIFTY-TWO P.M.
Would you still find me attractive if I hadnt lost my tail?
Belford has selected the soundtrack from The Sound of Music, the closest thing to Christian entertainment in your meager collection of CDs, and seated on the plush Paluko sofa, he is absentmindedly humming along with Julie Andrews when you mince into the room in peach lace undies to paralyze him in mid-hum. When he regains the power of speech, he stammers, What … what are you talking about? Tail?
I had a tail once. When I was an embryo. I had little flippers. And ridges and grooves alongside my head like the gill slits of a fish. As you say these things, you turn deliberately around and around, as if you were a model on a runway, and with each turn, your hips move closer to Belfords face. So, suppose I still had a tail?
But you dont. Belfords breath is behaving as if his lungs were overweight farmboys trying to squeeze through the strands of a barbed-wire fence; his Adams apple resembles a squash ball bouncing down the steps of an Aztec temple. I dont believe its an actual tail that we have in the womb, but whatever it is that looks like a tail, it goes away long before were born.
But if were created in Gods image, how come the human fetus is so much like a fish or a frog? Did Martin Luther address that question? When he wasnt busy addressing the question of how many bowling pins the Lord intended? If theres no such thing as evolution, how come we have tails and gills when were embryos, and why dont I have any now?
Taking your question a tad more seriously than you meant it, or perhaps seeking a diversion from the round little bottom that is hovering only about ten inches from his nose, he scratches his large, durable head and after due consideration, says, Were only in Gods image after were born. If were, you know, funny-looking, frog-looking, in the early stages of our development, well, its probably a warning. The Lord is telling us that if it wasnt for his merciful love, we could all be born looking like something that hops around in the slime. See what I mean, hon? Thats the way our babies would turn out if Satan was in the drivers seat.
Jeez! You hadnt intended to precipitate a theological discourse. To wrench the subject several degrees to the left of mainstream religion, you peel your panties slowly off your buttocks until your very perineum is exposed. But you never did answer me. How do you think Id look with a tail?
Belford can stand it no longer. He pulls you down on the sofa beside him-practically on top of him, to tell the truth-and commences to kiss and fondle you with an appetite close to frenzy.
Mmmfff! This is getting ahead of schedule, if not out of hand. Unt-unt-unt. You manage to free yourself. Whoa. Easy.
He looks hurt. Whats wrong? Did I … ?
Dont you want me to take off my bra? I thought you liked my little Filipina moons.
Belford nods twice, once to indicate that he does wish you to remove your brassiere, a second time to reaffirm his allegiance to your relatively undersized bust. Smiling, you unhook the bra-this model fastens in the front-but draw it back only far enough to reveal the narrow plain of flesh between the mounds. Holding a bra-end in each hand, you pause and look him squarely in the eye. Belford, you say, theres a serious matter I need to discuss with you, and … Im sorry about this but until we get it out of the way, its just going to be weighing on my mind, distracting me. You smile again and saw the bra back and forth, your breasts jiggling like yolks in their poachers of lace. You dont want me to be distracted, do you?
He does not. He wants only what you want. Like the gentleman everyone believes him to be, he sits back and listens politely as you deliver a Readers Digest version of your scheme to turn the current financial crisis to your advantage. (Were he truly a gentleman, he probably would not have maintained an erection throughout your speech, although there are extenuating circumstances. To wit: you are sitting beside him with your brassiere unhooked and your panties down around your thighs.) Now comes the delicate part, and you
strive for composure and an outward display of cheerful confidence. You require a short-term loan. Say, a hundred thousand dollars. More, if possible. To be repaid with interest. And, in the event of matrimony, profits shared. Washington is a community property state.
Attentive, even enthralled, Belford lets you complete your pitch. Then, he takes your small, cute hands sympathetically in his big, rough ones, and, as your bra falls open, he says, Golly, thats a very interesting idea, sweetie. Kinda risky …
No, no, Belford. Its a lock. Trust me.
… but the fact is, I couldnt help you in any case. I have to tell you what I did. He grins a grin that in certain parts of Montana would attract wolves and coyotes from miles around. Gwen, I made a promise to God. I promised the Father that if he was to see fit to deliver AndrE back to me, safe and sound, I would donate ninety percent of my savings to the Lutheran homeless shelter. Oh, honey, Im sorry, I really am. I cant stand to see you disappointed. But, I was desperate, and he heard my plea. He took pity on me in my darkest hour. And, you know, a guy just doesnt break a promise to the Lord.
As your mind plays reruns of the Bic lighter, the envelope of instructions, the fire that illuminated the Porsche cockpit, the ashes that sifted like nuclear snow onto Diamonds jeans, you think, What about my darkest hour? Hey? It was me who got your goddamned monkey back!
For several minutes, neither of you speaks. Your mind races nervously over your list of remaining options like the fingers of a blind espresso drinker reading the Braille menu in a coffee bar. Belford squeezes your hands and sort of coos and moos at you. He sounds like the background noise at a petting zoo. Through it all, however, he never loses his erection, and eventually, like the only tree left standing after a hurricane, it gets your attention. There is a natural desire to touch such a tree, to thump it, to lean against it, perhaps to lunch in its shade. That must be it. Otherwise, why, at this intensely dilemmatic juncture, when so much is at stake and when your romantic relationship with Belford has crossed the threshold of termination, would you reach out and grasp his suited phallus, pulling and bending it as if you were a Sherwood Forest bow-maker testing a sapling?
Misinterpreting your gesture, Belford swoops you up and carries you off to the bedroom. You ought to protest, but, instead, you kick off your underpants en route, while unbuttoning his
shirt.
Now, the plunge into the erotic is often a flight from a troublesome reality, yet it can occasionally be a centering device, a furnace in which to burn off all energies except that clear cerebral energy upon whose light an accurate, revelatory focus ultimately depends. In retrospect, you will be able to claim this reckless coupling as a prime example of the latter, but for the moment you are aware of little beyond the keen throb of an incandescent clitoris, a blistered hawthorn aching to be salved.
He lays you down among the grateful mites and steps smartly out of his trousers. Syncopic with a strange impersonal craving, you stare transfixed as he removes his boxer shorts, folds them neatly, and places them on top of the dresser. His member may resemble a turkey neck, but it is very large and very stiff, and you scarcely can restrain yourself from crying out for it. Hurry, hurry, you mutter, as in the next room a blithe Julie Andrews lists, for anyone whos interested, a few of her favorite things.
Heaving like a garden tractor, Belford busts the sod of your guilt. (Yes, there is a layer of guilt there, but it only makes your submission more frictional, and, therefore, more galvanizing.) You split open for him like a furrow. He plants a root crop, and the root runs deep. You rear, twist, shove, and squirm, so as not to miss an inch of it. His back is a brown paper package, your legs the string. Take it from the top, Julie.
Periodically, every three minutes or so, you think that you are finished with this lewd business, that you have had your fill, that you will push him off you and regain your composure if not your dignity, but then he will bump up against some nerve ending that has not been previously massaged, and you lose yourself for another three minutes until you have rubbed every last itch of pleasure out of that spot. Belford, you say between grunts, isnt, uh, this, uh, the best, uh, sex weve ever, uh, had? He is so surprised to hear you actually speak during intercourse that he freezes for a moment, as if alarmed. Then he nods in the affirmative-Belford, too, has never spoken during the act of love and he, for one, is apparently not about to spoil his record-and, with his cigar-sized fingers spreading the cheeks of your derriere, he resumes his thrust from a slightly different angle, sending a shock wave rumbling and jerking all the way to your gums.
Now, suddenly, he is lodged against your clitoris, pinning it to the wall, as it were; flattening it against the wall, where he polishes it repeatedly, like an old Greek grocer polishing an eggplant, like Aladdin summoning a reluctant genie; polishes it until you can feel it shine, feel it lighting up your vagina like a Broadway show. Ta-da! Down the aisle trots the white pony, proud and frisky. With a swish of its mane, it bounds through the orchestra pit, leaps over the footlights, and lands center stage with a mighty whinny, hooves pawing the boards, mouth foaming, nostrils flaring, eyes popping on and off as if bulbs in a strobe. It brings down the house. And when Belford showers it with a hot tsunami of liquid white roses, it stands on its head for an encore.
ELEVEN FIFTY-SIX P.M.
In the breathy aftermath of this show-stopping extravaganza, you feel less satisfied than vindicated, less vindicated than liberated. Satisfaction is nothing but a temporary anesthetizing of the numinous noogie of existence. Vindication is merely revenge without the mustard. Liberation, on the other hand, liberation is a front so big that the only back that can match it is death, and even death may not be a perfect fit.
Any fear you harbored that Larry Diamond had a hold on you, had put you in some psychosexual trance, completely dissipated in the surf of your orgasm. True, you may not have been able to achieve that orgasm if it hadnt been for Diamond; it was he who showed you how to spur the white pony all the way over the hill, and should there ever come a time when sex plays a more important role in your life than it does at present, a time when an admirer might actually dub you the best piece of ass in Seattle and you-God forbid!-feel honored by it, then you suppose you shall be in Diamonds debt. For now, however, having shot the wildest imaginable rapids in a raft launched by the barely competent Belford Dunn, you feel liberated from obligation, from dependency, from awe; feel free from Diamonds potential influence or domination; feel in charge of your own destiny, and not a penny less.
And, washing up at the bathroom sink (while Belford snores), you know exactly what action you are going to take!
One thing you do not know, alas, is that Belford, in a rare display of proprietary presumption, unplugged both of your telephones immediately after your futile call to police headquarters. Had your apartment been on line, you would have received an hour ago a message from Larry Diamond, a message urgent in tone if not in substance, a message concerning an alleged sighting of Q-Jo Huffington; an absurd message, frankly, yet one that might have altered the bold course upon which you are about to embark. It might have. And again it might not.
TWELVE THIRTY-THREE A.M.
An ear being cleaned with a cellophane Q-Tip. A duck eating shredded wheat in an echo chamber. The gods frying ambrosia burgers. The Void gone electric. Termites reading aloud from Kafka.
There is so much static on the line that you barely recognize Sol Finkelsteins voice when he answers the phone at Posner Lampard McEvoy and Jacobsen. He, on the other hand, like an ornithologist who can pick out the chirp of a chickadee in rush-hour traffic, identifies your peewee piping instantly. Where the hell are you, Mati? The fun has stopped. Its time to dance with the dead. He sounds as if he is still slightly drunk, and he offers no apology for his rudeness on Thursday night.
Uh, listen, Sol …
Speak up, Mati, I can hardly hear you. Communications are a mess. Posner and I have tried every frigging exchange in Europe-the Yamaguchi bubble is set to burst, and we want to
short the whole Japanese index …
Short the Nikkei. Yes! Why hadnt you thought of that?
… but we cant crack the interference. Tried to fax London a minute ago and instead of a fax signal I got Asian sports scores. Ever hear of a basketball team called the Hong Kong Flu?
Sol, Ive got some personal stuff at the disco. Pictures and stuff. Would you have Judi Mullikin clean out my desk and take everything home with her? Ill send for it later.
Whatre you saying, Mati? Youre walking? Posners got a whole bag of bones to pick with you. Id advise you to come in and face the music. Or dont you have the decency, the guts?
A cyclone blows a pile of dry leaves through the P.A. system at a high-school pep rally. When the crackling subsides, you say, Kiss my Third World ass, Sol, and fuck Posner and the cooked books he rode in on. Before you hang up, you add, If you had a clue, toadbrain, youd know the fun is just beginning. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!
TWELVE THIRTY-NINE A.M.
Standing over Belford, you watch the rise and fall of his hairy chest. In a pulse of dEjA vu, you flash back to AndrE, tranquilized atop Q-Jos table. Compared to the monkey, though, Belford looks touchingly unworldly. Not that AndrE is actually corrupt, he has just had to be clever in certain unorthodox ways in order to survive. Like you, Gwendolyn? Yes, you suppose you are beginning to feel a modicum of kinship with the exploited macaque.
In any case, Belford isnt free of stain. He unplugged your phones, didnt he? Well, so what? That was easily corrected. In the living room, you simply jacked back in and burned a bridge. A major bridge. Jesus! You hope you wont come to regret it.