In Sister Bessie’s room, Cyril looked at his watch. “Now,” he said softly.
“We’re live,” said Karl.
“Go,” murmured Christmas.
“Good evening, friends. Welcome to this first historic and secret broadcast,” said Karl into his microphone, with the slightest tremor in his voice. “We are about to bring you Diamond Dogs. Good listening from CKC.”
There was an instant of silence during which Cyril writhed on the bed, and then a warm young voice said, “Hey, New York. Can you hear me in the dark?”
“My Christmas,” said Cetta.
“Shaddup, cretina,” rumbled Sal, tensely.
“Before we begin, I got somethin’ t’ tell ya,” Christmas said into the microphone.
Karl peered at him across the shadowy room.
Cyril stood up with a smug look on his face.
“I want all of ya t’ think about all the prostitutes in New York. I ain’t talkin’ about sex. I want ya t’ see ’em like I do. Like women. Which is what they are,” Christmas’ voice resonated from all the radios in Harlem, the Lower East Side, and Brooklyn. “I owe them a lot. And all of New York City is in their debt. So treat ’em decent. They got a heart even for the likes of us, that ain’t got none.”
Sister Bessie hugged her children and looked up at Cyril, laughing.
“And now we got a special song,” said Christmas’ melodious voice. “After that, I’m gonna let you come wit’ me into a different world, a world that’s dark and dangerous. Our world. The streets where gangsters live and die.”
Christmas nodded to Karl, who set the microphone in front of the Victrola’s speaker and released the arm.
“I’m playin’ this for you, Mamma,” said Christmas.
Karl delicately placed the needle on the disc.
Cetta, in her living room, could hear the needle scratching along the groove, and then her son’s voice. “Fred Astaire told me in person I should play this for you. Know what it is?”
The Radiola sent out the first notes of the song.
“Lady …” Cetta began, but she was interrupted by a sob. “Lady … be …” she stammered, weeping, and then managed to say, “Lady be Good!” before she abandoned herself to tears, putting her arms around Sal who remained sitting stiff and stony, staring at the radio as if hypnotized.
“I heard tell Fred Astaire’s a finoosh,” said Sal, pulling out his handkerchief and passing it to Cetta.
Cetta laughed through her tears.
“Grazie, Mamma,” said Christmas’ voice when the song ended. “And now, New York, lemme hear ya say it with me! All together now: Raise the rag! Let the show begin!”
51
Los Angeles, 1927
Bill stopped his 1919 Studebaker Big Six Touring in front of the striped tent at the Los Angeles Residence Club on Wilshire Boulevard. He didn’t turn off the engine. He stroked the steering wheel. It must have been nice and shiny when the car was new. Almost ten years of hands had left it dull and cracked in a few places. But it was still a classy car. In its time, a car for rich people. Not his crummy Ford Model T. He’d bought it used a month ago. For eight hundred bucks. Cash on the barrelhead. Yeah, even if she was getting old, the Studebaker was a car to be proud of, he thought, satisfied, while the doorman of the Residence Club opened the door for him.
“Good evening, Mr. Fennore,” said the doorman.
“Hiya, Lester,” Bill smiled at him. “Bedtime fer baby,” he said slapping a hand on the hood.
The doorman got into the car. Bill waited on the sidewalk while the gleaming Bordeaux convertible headed into the clients’ parking. Maybe nobody in the street was gonna turn around and look at it with their mouth hangin’ open. And nobody who saw him at the wheel would mistake him for a rich guy. But it was a big step up from his Tin Lizzie. If business kept on being good, he’d be able to afford a Duesenberg. A Model J. A bullet on wheels that could reach a hundred and nineteen miles an hour. They introduced it this year at the New York Auto Show. Bill looked at the pictures in a magazine and he decided that sooner or later he’d own a Duesenberg. He smiled again and then he looked up at the fifth floor of the Los Angeles Residence Club. Suite 504. It wasn’t like the suites over at the Wilshire Grand Hotel two blocks down at 320 Wilshire Boulevard. It was really just a big room divided in two, with no door. The bed was in one part and in the other there were two big chairs, a table, and a sofa. Up high in the corners the wallpaper had darkened and come loose. The doorman at the Club didn’t wear a gold-braided uniform like the one at the Grand Hotel. They didn’t have room service. You had to go downstairs and buy a sandwich in the shop across the street and bring it back up. The sheets and towels got changed every week, on Monday; and if you happened to slop coffee or something on the bed so you needed an extra change of linens, you had to pay half a dollar extra. The chambermaid was a gimpy, old black woman who did nothing but change the bed, take away the trash and garbage — mostly the greasy bags from his sandwiches. Sometimes she forgot to empty the ashtrays. Naw, it wasn’t a real suite, even if the Club called it that. It just meant it wasn’t a single room. And the swimming pool out back was nothing but a green slimy puddle. Lester had told him the hotel owner was a mean old tightwad. “They open the pool only when there’s no vacancy,” he’d confided. Of course, that never happened. But for Bill it was still an enormous step up from the nastiness of the Palermo Courts. And he was sure that someday he’d be moving to the Wilshire Grand.
Yeah, a new whatchamacallit, a new era’s startin’, he thought happily, repeating Arty’s favorite phrase.
Bill came into the hotel and took the elevator up to the fifth floor. He opened the two windows, tidied things, rinsed his face, and checked the cabinet under the bathroom sink. It was there. Lester was as good as his word. He’d gotten him a bottle of real whiskey. Not the usual Mexican tequila, not the usual rum. Bill took the bottle and two glasses and set them on the table in the living room. He was expecting a visitor. He smiled. He unscrewed the cap and poured himself two fingers of whiskey. Arty thought he’d been invited for a drink. He didn’t know that tonight he was going to have to talk business. Talk money. Bill had figured some stuff out and now he wanted more.
Someone was knocking. Beyond the door he could hear the giggles of two girls. Arty had brought company.
“Shit,” Bill muttered. He opened the door with a dazzling smile on his lips. “C’mon in, Arty,” he said.
“Hi, Punisher,” the two girls said in unison, sidling into the room and hugging Bill.
Bill shook them off, annoyed. “I thought you was comin’ alone,” he growled at Arty.
“Hey, you wanted to give me a party? Just for me?” said Arty, putting a hand on each girl’s buttocks, as if to protect them.
The girls giggled. One was blonde and shapely, almost fat. The other girl was dark and very thin. Bill knew who they were. Everybody called them The Twins. They specialized in Sapphic roles. Arty liked lesbians. He liked to watch them and then fuck them.
“I wanted t’ talk business wit’ ya,” said Bill.
“What I had in mind was, we could GIVE THEM THE BUSINESS,” said Arty.
The girls laughed and then kissed each other on the lips.
“I’m serious,” said Bill.
“So am I, believe you me. Just ask Lola,” and Arty took the blond girl’s hand and pressed it against his crotch.
The girl cooed in feigned astonishment and then laughed, along with the other one. The dark girl came around behind Bill and reached between his legs, moving her hand up his fly.
“Quit it,” said Bill, shoving her backwards.
“What’s so important?” asked Arty, suddenly serious.
“I wanna talk business,” Bill said again. He looked at the girls. “Not in fronta them.”
Arty sighed and looked around. “Go in the toilet,” he said. “Shut yourselves in there and don’t come out till we call you.”
“Okay, Arty,” chorused the girls.
>
“And behave yourselves in there, girls,” Arty joked, squeezing the blonde’s behind.
The girls laughed and closed themselves in the bathroom.
“So?” said Arty.
“Siddown,” said Bill. He poured two generous doses of whiskey. He raised his glass and clinked it against the director’s. “How many movies we done by now, Arty?”
“Eight.”
“Nine, countin’ t’day, right?”
“Right.”
“You and me, we’re startin’ a new era. Right?” said Bill, looking straight into the director’s eyes.
“After today, yes,” and Arty gave a satisfied chuckle. “I looked at some of the footage. It’s amazing material.” He drank. “Remember what I said the first time I saw you in action?”
“You said you was gonna make me a star.”
“And did I keep my promise?”
Bill grinned. “Yeah,” he said. In the circle of rich Hollywood perverts, The Punisher was now an icon. A savage icon of a savage world. The black leather mask that Bill had wanted to wear out of fear of being recognized and having to pay for the crimes he’d committed in New York had turned out to be a brilliant idea. The Punisher had no face. Every man in his audience could believe that he himself was behind that mask. And every one of them could believe he had the balls to rape a woman. To rain blows on her. To treat her like garbage. Like a slave. Above the law, above the rules. Beyond any kind of morality. The Punisher was the body and the voice of all the innate violence in every man. In every male. “Yeah,” Bill said again.
“And that’s nothing, believe me,” said Arty. “We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” He finished his drink and poured another.
The first eight films had been shot according to a traditional scheme: Shot. Cut. Pause. Shot, and so on. The Punisher’s victims were professional actresses; faces — and bodies — already familiar in the world of pornography. They pretended to be raped. For money. Bill was actually striking them, but not as he would have done in reality. It was a performance, something fictional. Between one shot and the next, the actress busied herself with not letting Bill’s excitement fade, while the makeup woman colored the fake wounds with fake blood. At the beginning Hollywood had welcomed The Punisher’s feats with great enthusiasm. They were perfectly happy with the fictional versions. No other film until then had gone so far, dared so much, in the realm of pornography. The other films in circulation looked slick by contrast. But later they had gotten used even to Bill’s. A few actors and directors who always bought The Punisher’s films complained that they were sick of the usual actresses. Others said they could tell they were faking. And then Arty had the idea. It was all going to be true. All of it real. No cuts, no pauses, no professional actresses. He would need real girls. Real victims. Everything ought to be as it had been the very first time he’d spied Bill on the deserted shooting stage, raping his leading lady, Frida the Mexican señorita.
“I’m telling you, this is nothing,” Arty said emphatically. “Get what I’m saying?”
“Yeah.”
“Just wait till this new one starts getting around,” Arty went on. “We’ll be rolling in gold.”
Bill freshened his drink. After a silence he said, “Yeah, well, that’s what I wanted t’ talk to ya about.”
“I don’t get you: what ‘what’?”
“What am I getting in my pocket?”
“What, you want a raise?” Arty laughed. “Okay, sure. A thousand’s not enough? How much do you want? I can go to fifteen hundred a film. Okay?”
Bill drank, peering at him. He didn’t answer.
“Shit! Fifteen hundred!”
Bill didn’t say anything.
“Seventeen hundred, Jesus H. Christ. I can’t do better than that. I’ve got expenses.”
Bill tossed back his whiskey. He clicked his lips and filled his glass again.
“Don’t push me,” said Arty in a hard voice.
“Or what?” Bill smiled.
Arty stood up, annoyed. “I made you. Don’t you ever forget it. Who the hell was Cochrann Fennore before I — sonofabitch! — invented him? An assistant prop man. Not a dime in his pocket. And look at you now! A swell car, a good address, this damned suite … and it’ll get better and better for you.
“You could go to the top.” He stabbed a finger at him. “But don’t try to push me, I’m warning you.”
Bill took another swallow of booze. He felt light-headed, with a growing sense of exaltation. He felt invincible. And a little bit drunk. “Yeah? Well, what was Arty Short before he met The Punisher? A pimp. Nothin’ but a pimp who made some crappy two-reelers about hoors. Like all the other pimps in L.A. And who would ya be without The Punisher? Still a pimp, Arty. What you are is a pimp, you ain’t no director. A shitty pimp.”
Arty tried to control his rage. He turned his back on Bill and strode up and down the room.
“Look at me, Arty,” said Bill, getting to his feet.
Arty stopped. Bill came over to him, staring into his eyes. His look was dark, cold, distant. Arty took a step backwards as soon as Bill came close to him. Arty tried to look away, moving his head from side to side. Bill grabbed his throat.
“‘I’m gonna make you a star,’ yeah. That’s true, that’s what ya said t’me that first time,” said Bill, without loosening his grip. “Ya keep remindin’ me about it, all ya do is think about what a smart move that was. But ya never bother t’ think about what I was thinkin’ back then. Before you said that. Ain’t ya never wondered, Arty?”
“You’re hurting me,” said the director.
Bill laughed. “Wanna know what I thought when I saw yuh there?” He looked at him in silence for a moment, then leaned in closer, his lips against the director’s ear. “I thought I was gonna kill ya, Arty,” he whispered. He let go of Arty’s neck and went back and sat down, pouring more whiskey. “That’s what ya oughta be thinkin’ about, Arty. If ya hadn’t had that brilliant idea o’ yours, you’d be one dead pimp by now.”
Arty gave a taut little smile and sat down across from Bill with an embarrassed little laugh. “I don’t see why we’re even having this conversation. Why are you getting riled up? What are we talking about? Two thousand a film? We can do that, if that’s what you–”
“From now on, it’s fifty percent,” Bill interrupted.
“What?”
“Ya getting’ deaf, Arty?”
“Now come on, just think about it … I’ve got a ton of expenses. Film stock, the crew on the set, renting the stage …”
“We’ll subtrack the expense and whatever’s left over, we each get half.”
“But you don’t understand …”
“I unnerstand just fine. We’ll keep an account book and write down every penny. And if the crew wants a raise, then we talk about it together, you an’ me. And if ya gotta buy film, we’ll do it together. And if they gotta build a set, we’re gonna count every flat an’ every can o’ paint. I’m gonna check every cent, Arty. An’ if ya try t’ cheat me, first I’ll break ya ass wide open an’ then I’ll find me a new director. Get what I’m sayin’?” Bill knocked back another swallow of whiskey.
Arty looked down, shaking his head, searching for an argument. “I … what you don’t understand … it’s not just a question of account books … this is a very complicated business …” Arty rubbed a hand across his pitted cheek. He breathed in deeply. He glanced up at Bill. His face was very red. “I’ve got the connections!” he shouted in a thin voice.
Bill grabbed him by the lapels, across the table, pulling him towards him. “Yeah? Well, I got the prick. I got the balls. I got the anger, Arty.” He let go. “Oh, I got the anger,” he said softly.
The two men sat without speaking. Bill with the look of a winner. Arty with his head and neck hunched into his shoulders.
“Yeah, all right,” Arty said at last. “We’re partners.”
Bill laughed. “Ya made the right choice, pal.”
Arty smiled a
nd gulped his whiskey. “Well, we’d better celebrate with the Twins,” he said.
“I don’t care,” said Bill, shrugging.
“Bitches!” shouted Arty. “Come on out of the toilet!”
The girls opened the door, smiling as always.
“Get warmed up, girls,” said Arty, lifting his chin at the bed.
The girls flung themselves on the bed, giggling, and began kissing and undressing each other.
Arty got out of the armchair and watched them. He turned to Bill. “Come on, partner,” he said.
“Naw, they ain’t my style,” said Bill. “You can have ’em.”
Arty slapped the blonde’s round rump. “Better come over here, partner,” he said, “this looks like prime meat.” He laughed. Then he let the girls pull him down on the bed. They began to undress him and caress him knowingly.
Bill took another swallow of whiskey. He looked at Arty’s erection. So ready. So immediate. Almost mechanical. Now that he could have all the women he wanted, Bill couldn’t fuck any more, except on the set. In private, he couldn’t get it to rise. He couldn’t get excited. He’d even tried slapping the girl around, but he couldn’t get a decent erection.
The brunette had fastened a dildo between her thighs and was penetrating the blonde from behind while the blonde sucked on Arty’s dick.
“You need to hang a mirror up there,” Arty told Bill, panting.
“Yeah,” said Bill distractedly. The bottle was almost empty. On the set it was different. He never failed. By now it wasn’t even the violence. It was the quiet whirring of the camera that made him excited. Fame.
“Go get him,” Arty told the brunette.
The girl got off the bed and walked slowly over to Bill, provocatively, the rigid artificial phallus bouncing ahead of her. She stopped in front of him.
The dildo was pointing at him. Right in front of his face. “Ever do it with a guy?” she asked, putting a hand over her tiny breasts.
Bill leaped to his feet and punched her in the face. “Get fucked, bitch!” he shouted. Then he began kicking her.