“The gun had blanks in it, idiot, in case you didn’t notice.”
How could she completely miss the point? “I didn’t mean that. I meant you really pull some pretty complex shit yourself when it comes to relating with men.”
“Don’t give me a lecture. I think I actually like better the guys who slug me than the assholes who lecture me on how I’m supposed to be.”
“Maybe you should listen to their lectures sometime.”
“What for? Everybody wants me to be like they want me to be, not like I am. I’m never supposed to have my own personality. I’m just supposed to be this cute little extension of their personalities. Well, I’ve had it. Never again.”
“We didn’t even have a chance to get started before you jumped all over me. You’re projecting onto me all these traits you think I’m gonna have. So you wind up killing it before it even has a chance to catch a second wind. How do you know I’m gonna be like everybody else? You make me like everybody else by treating me that way before I’m even halfway able to start to show you who I am.”
“I know,” she said sullenly. “But I’m a professional at reading the writing on the wall. You got to learn how to do that, in advance. If you wait around until some jerk actually proves he’s like everybody else, it’s too late. ‘Too late’ meaning the son of a bitch is already squirting inside you, trying to wreck your freedom and cripple your body by making you pregnant so he can leave you the name of a good abortionist and then take a powder.”
“Not everybody’s like that.”
“Do you want to marry me, Joe?”
Fighting an urge to say yes, Joe stared at the tea box.
“I thought so. Do you want to have a child with me?”
Words struggled to escape his throat. If only he could release them, accepting her offer, casting his lot with this strangled woman in order to begin again. But suppose it went haywire? He would never be able to rub out the sight of Michael’s terrified countenance barely an hour ago.
“So there you go, Joe. Now shuttup and get off my case. I can’t believe that only yesterday I actually thought you were a human being.”
That jarred a raw nerve. As if somehow all this sturm and drang were his fault. As if he, Joe Miniver, a cross from birth between Adolf Eichmann and Charley Starkweather, with a little Fatty Arbuckle thrown in for good measure, had apprenticed under Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler in order to become the human Jaws of Chamisaville. Joe stiffened. He knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that at heart he was a good person who had always tried to do right by everybody. For so long he had struggled to forge a decent marriage, be an understanding and loving daddy. Then of a sudden, inspired by totally altruistic motives, he had stumbled out of his league, fallen among sophisticated gangsters, and lost his bearings. Not a true criminal bone existed in his simplistic body, yet somehow he had floundered into a corner where he resembled the reincarnation of a Kiplingesque cobra in an English colonial garden—it wasn’t fair! Diana had no right to accuse him of dastardly motivations! Especially after intimately catering, for so long, to the sadistic ministrations of an unholy creep like Angel Guts!
He wanted to hit the supercilious little cocktease. He actually wanted to grab a saltcellar and clock her one atop the noggin. Or stab her in the shoulder with a fork. Where did they come from, these aggravating cripples? The cocaine tea box pulsed naughtily between his tightly clenched fists. Heidi’s bloody face focused, but he quashed that vision immediately. And shut his eyes, attempting to regain control. Stand up, say good-bye, walk off, the voice of reason continued. Pull her own gun, blast away, and cackle as she croaks, the voice of vengeance and stupidity urged. Joe chose a middle road, remaining inert, forging a blank mind, becoming a useless blob.
They stalled. Joe fiddled with a knife. Quietly, Diana drew nonsensical patterns on the shiny table with a finger dipped in her cold coffee. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dropped off her chin, splashed onto the table. Joe’s voice cracked as he finally broke the silence:
“Diana, I hate talking like this. I don’t want to anymore. It’s too cruel.”
She didn’t speak.
“Look. I don’t understand you, I’ll admit. I don’t know what you’ve been through. I’m sorry I offended you so badly. Believe me, I didn’t want to. I just can’t seem to function correctly in this snakepit. Maybe I was married for too long.”
“But you hadda get into my pants, didn’t you? That’s all anybody ever wants. Just once I’d like a relationship the driving force of which wasn’t somebody’s manic desire to nail my cunt.”
Joe remained mute. What could he say—that he hadn’t wanted to screw? That he wasn’t guilty of the yearning she blamed him for? But why did that have to be so wrong? Or, at least, why did sex have to evolve into something unutterably complex and riddled with contradictions, making it impossible to enjoy? All the psychologists wrote books on how beautiful it could be. Erica Jong had had a ball balling. The Playboy adviser guided people through innumerable excursions of kinky delights. Swinging swinglers extolled the phallic and cloacal virtues of orgies galore and communal S and M. Even the lesbians and the male homosexuals were united in joyous radical revolutions to win their hornball rights. But Joe Miniver, nudnik supreme, not only couldn’t get off in a strange babe, but after five days on the liberated hustings he had managed to co-opt every coherent sexual, spiritual, and political bone in his blatantly immature body!
Sighing, Joe fashioned a helpless gesture.
“Well, what the hell.” Diana dried her tears on the sleeve of her blue work shirt. “The nice thing is you leave me feeling neutral, Joe. I couldn’t care less if you survive or drop dead. Already, you’re not even a memory in my heart.”
Joe hung his hangdog head.
“I can’t muster hatred for you, Joe. It doesn’t even bug me that while I assumed you were so conscientiously trying to start your car last night, you were actually over in the Nuzums’ mansion doing a number on that middle-aged Bulgarian with the phony accent who’s going to write a best-selling book about the Hanuman snatch tomorrow. So what? Tant pis. I feel nothing. I’m staring at you and I can’t even remember your face.”
He awoke slightly. “Where did you hear that about the Hanuman snatch?”
“On the street, in the dives—who knows?”
“What did you hear?”
“One version has it that your lawyer pal, Tribby Gordon, and Ephraim Bonatelli, in the pay of Ephraim’s pop and Nikita Smatterling, are teaming up to fly in a Floresta helicopter to grab the statue and dump it in a high-country lake, hoping the sensationalism will give Iréné Papadraxis enough material to write a best seller that’ll keep the Simian Foundation, which has a forty-percent interest in the book, on easy street for the rest of its natural-born spiritual existence.”
Joe groaned.
“Like I said, that’s one version. I don’t care if it’s true or false. You’re just a pathetic little puddle of protoplasm in my book, Joe. A nonentity. A vapid ghoul.”
“Well, uh, I guess I’ll be going.…” Would he faint when he stood up?
She actually smiled, in control again. “Nobody’s stopping you.”
“I’m really sorry you hate me.” Gathering his cocaine, Joe backed away from her, terrified that any second a devil-wrought impulse would cause him to shriek and leap at her, kung-fu fists flying.
Darlene had just arrived. “The grill’s already shut off, José. All I can give you is a sandwich, or juice. And we still got hot coffee, a Danish—you know, anything that doesn’t need cooking.”
“I’m leaving, Darlene.”
“You going to that party tonight, or will you be busy polishing your flight goggles?”
Ignoring her last comment, Joe mumbled, “I dunno, yeah, maybe…”
“Do me a favor,” Darlene said. “If you arrive before me, tell Spumoni it dragged on a little here and I decided to shower at home first, okay?”
“Sure, Darlene. You can count
on me.”
“From what I’ve been hearing lately, I wouldn’t bet on it.” Jauntily, she swung around the counter, heading into the kitchen.
“Why, what have you been hearing?” His voice hailed his own ears from across distant chasms.
“I heard you’ve got to walk it on a leash to revive it with fresh air at least four times a day because it’s been getting such a workout,” she giggled, disappearing into the smoky arena where all the Prince of Whales’ synthetic grub was deep-fried, baked, or radiated.
Diana laughed.
Joe said, “That isn’t funny.”
“But it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
Joe floated out the door on the bitterly redolent currents of her unadulterated disdain.
* * *
HE HAD LOST something precious forever. Nostalgia, as strong as the scent of popcorn, eddied about the plaza. A remarkable lull was in progress. Incredibly, the plaza was empty.
Joe hesitated, absentmindedly stroking the cocaine, wondering how to function. A mongrel trotted through the plaza’s antitank structures and circled the South Seas bandstand gazebo: its toenails clicked against the bricks. A few lilac bushes boasted purple blossoms. Fluffy seed tufts from two cottonwoods parachuted dreamily earthward.
Nick Danger shuffled into the plaza, outfitted in the Tyrolean hat, vinyl trenchcoat, and black laceless dress shoes. Clutching his mysterious suitcase as always, he glanced neither to the right nor to the left as he navigated toward the Prince of Whales, on a collision course with Joe, who leaned against a portal post. As the secretive, Bogeyesque little gnome drew near, Joe suddenly had an urge to give it one more try. What a kick to be bounteous and friendly again, capable of vastly enriching the world by tossing it bouquets of sensitivity, love, commitment, and compassion … starting right now with Nick Danger.
“Hello there,” he said pleasantly. “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”
The little man stopped dead five feet away. His shoulders were hunched gloomily, his chapped and scabby hands clutched the battered suitcase almost defiantly, his lips were compressed in a grim grimace, his hat was pulled down over eyes trained on the ground directly in front of his toes.
“Are you talking to me, mister?”
“Sure, I just said hello. It’s a lovely evening.”
“Nobody ever simply talks to me,” Nick said icily. “So what’s your beef?”
“Beef? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. All I said was hello.”
“Nobody just says ‘hello’ in life,” Nick threatened. “Everybody has an ulterior motive. So, you know, next time you see me coming, if you ain’t got business to transact save your breath. I don’t need a bunch of fucking people bugging me every day with pleasantries, y’unnerstand?”
“Okay, if you insist. I’m sorry.”
“Well, watch it next time.”
“Sure.”
“I heard you been marked for death anyway,” Nick said offhandedly. Then the mysterious little man went into motion again, heading for the café.
Joe flared. “Hey, wait just a minute, creep!”
Nick Danger froze in midstep, but did not turn around.
Emboldened by his ridiculous anger, Joe said, “Just what in hell do you keep in that stupid suitcase, anyway?”
His threatening back still to Joe, Nick snarled, “Who wants to know?”
“Me, dammit. What were you doing in that hospital room with Ray Verboten and Ephraim Bonatelli and Nikita Smatterling? What’s in that moth-eaten bag anyway—dope? Guns? Money?”
Slowly … theatrically … menacingly, Nick turned around. His bruising eyes glinted in the shadow beneath the Tyrolean’s brim. His mouth was so tight and malicious that a chill struck with the fury of a malignant stab between Joe’s shoulder blades, and, too late, he realized what that singular suitcase contained: a tommy gun! Or, worse yet, the shrunken heads of dope-interloper morons, like Joe Miniver, that the grotesque Mafia hitman had severed, as proof of terminated contracts, for employers like Joseph Bonatelli and Ray Verboten.
“What I got in this suitcase is none of your business unless you want to do business,” the gangster-derelict proclaimed. Like a disguised blackbelt karate expert, he seemed balanced on the balls of his feet, waiting for his enemy to make one false move so that he could press a spring latch on his guncase and mow Joe down in spades … In Self-Defense. Yet Joe quivered, enraged, allowing foolhardy adrenal spurts to mug his rational brain. Once too often his good intentions had been misunderstood, his lust for a compassionate interaction deflected into a murky territory where hysteria and assholeism reigned. Well, he’d had it: let the dangerous little fart do his worst. If he couldn’t respond to a cheerful and heartfelt greeting, then by God Joe would jump the arrogant half-pint motherfucker, give him a mouthful of bloody Chiclets, and satisfy his curiosity as to what that decrepit valise concealed!
And, ignoring an inner wail that decreed this absurd hoax was about the least intelligent thing he’d ever promulgated, Joe dropped his cocaine and jumped Nick Danger: they both toppled earthward, emitting startled grunts. Nick’s head, clopping against the cement gutter, sounded like the proverbial melon splitting. The tattered valise struck the sidewalk and flew open. From the corner of one eye, Joe saw something ecru-colored and rubbery, like an enormous mocking tongue, flap out of the dingy innards with a loud hiss. Right before his eyes, the thing twisted, boinged, and bloomed as compressed air, from a can whose nozzle was attached to the latex apparition, blew it up. A naked female leg appeared out of the tumultuous ether and ricocheted off his fending forearm: then a voluptuous belly and enormous lascivious tits surged into being. Finally, still within the blink of an eye, a head puffed out, decorated in platinum curls. Ruby-red lips, pursed around a penis-sized hole, flew into Joe’s face, propelled by an arm springing into airy shape. The thing—a life-size Japanese fuck doll, Joe realized instantly!—hovered above them both for a second as final spurts of the accidentally triggered compressed oxygen filled out its hollow, fleshy skin, then it plopped weightlessly across Nick Danger’s stomach and quivered, settling.
Kneeling (the doll’s heels against his either shoulder), Joe found himself staring down between a long pair of slightly spread gams into a make-believe but deeply recessed vagina that appeared to have been molded into the lifelike rubbery crotch with fluorescent Play-Doh.
“Holy shit.”
Nick Danger’s Tyrolean headpiece lay beside a garbage can: the sinister little shtarker was bald. And out, apparently, for the duration. A tattoo of a rattlesnake coiled to strike blared off of his incongruously naked scalp. Beside his shoulder lay the open suitcase, stacked with large painted and layered rubber pancakes—more dolls. The one lying across Nick’s chest must have been a demonstration model.
Hideously ashamed and also horrified, Joe gawked and balked. My God, what had he unleashed this time? How could he have been so cruel?
SEX-CRAZED GARBAGE MAN MUGS FUCK-DOLL SALESMAN! BERSERK S & MER KILLED BY EXPLODING LOLITA! COPS CORNER KINKY JOYBOY IN INFLATABLE-CUTIE HEIST!
A stir, a groan, a twitch—Nick Danger was still alive! Stuttering, Joe asked, “Are you all right?” An eye, Nick’s left one, opened halfway and fastened tentatively on Joe. “What’d you do that for?” he whimpered. “You wanted a Daring Debbie, I woulda sold you one. I thought maybe you were a porno cop.”
“‘Daring Debbie’?”
“Sure.” Nick opened his other eye, but remained immobile. “I sell a dozen of these rubber babes every week.”
“For how much?”
“A hunnert bucks.”
“But I never see anybody talk to you. I mean, I didn’t even know you had a voice. Whoever approaches you…?”
“Not while you’re looking, no—I’m very discreet. But they give me high signs, and we meet later. Every Chamisaville male knows what Nick is selling. I’m the most popular sex therapist in town. You want one? I’ll give a discount—eighty bucks. A jar of Vaseline comes free.”
/> Joe lifted shakily to his feet, and located the cocaine. “I don’t … I mean … but … are you all right?”
“My head hurts.”
“Can you move?” He bent over to extend a helping hand.
“Don’t touch me, gonif. I can handle myself.” Still not budging, Nick fumbled with the plastic figure across his chest, located a pressure-relief valve, and depressed it: air escaped in a noisy rush—the doll deflated completely within seconds.
Joe said, “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean…”
“Apologize your head off.” Nick suddenly scrambled erect, folding the empty girl back into a pancake; he relatched the battered suitcase. “But save your wind for my lawyer if your lawyer pal doesn’t kill you in the helicopter tomorrow!”
“Who’s your lawyer?” What did he plan to do now, this gnomish anomaly—sue?
“Scott Harrison, turkey,” the lugubrious little charlatan said smugly, with one hand adjusting the Tyrolean hat on his head as he scuttled away. “The best shyster in the West!”
“You gotta be kidding!” Joe called plaintively.
“Sure,” Nick chortled gleefully. “Me and Bob Hope!”
“But you’re not even hurt!” Joe cried. “And I apologized. I’m truly sorry.”
“Wait’ll you see my whiplash in court!” the ugly profiteer trailed behind himself as he slithered into the Prince of Whales.
MILLIONAIRE PORNO GRIFTER STINGS CHAMISAVILLE GARBAGE MAN!
And Joe could see it already: a miracle occurred, somehow he unloaded the coke for a hundred Gs, bought Eloy Irribarren’s land, paid off Heidi, built a humble but wonderful house, and was about to live happily ever after when Nick Danger came out on top in Chamisaville’s legal snake pit, and the scraggly hustlerito wound up as king of Joe’s manor, while Joe himself inherited a suitcase jam-packed with sex dolls, and, outfitted in Tyrolean green, vinyl skin, and Depression-era black pumps, shuffled about this nasty burg, selling female-shaped balloons to lonely bourgeois monkey worshipers.