Crooked Little Vein: A Novel

  Trix had gotten the handheld to connect to the Web and produce a road map from the hotel to the location of the man on the phone. I pulled the rental car out of the lot and started following the red line from here to there. Within ten minutes, we were off the highway and barreling up and down leafy suburban hills fringed by big-porched houses stabbed by flagpoles from which bedraggled Stars and Stripes bled.

  Trix took it all in like she was riding across the face of the moon. “People really have flags?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now that’s weird.”

  “Yeah, but you’re from New York.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “People in New York are either New Yorkers, or they’re Spanish, or Italian, or Irish, or whatever. Who the hell moves to Williamsburg and says, Hey, I’m an American? Hell, even after 9/11, if you wanted to tell someone they were being a good guy, people were saying, ‘You’re a hell of a New Yorker, buddy.’”

  “Well, what about you?”

  “Well, I’m from Chicago.”

  Trix snorted.

  We nosed out of flag country into parking-lot territory. The standard-issue skyscraper-shape cityscape of Columbus resolved into view, off in the distance. Bland and generic as it was, I wanted to be there. But we had to follow the red line into the tangle of housing out there. To see the man who’d been traded the book for a night of “physical adventurism.”

  Chapter 11

  I parked outside the address, a well-kept place that’d had the front yard cemented over into parking spaces. This was a guy who had a lot of friends. His neighbor had an old Impala rotting in the yard next door. It looked like God had shat in it—the roof punched in, the interior filled with earth and weeds. A brown sneaker poked out of the bottom of the dirt in the doorless passenger side. The sneaker looked worryingly full.

  My guy’s door chime was blandly anonymous. We waited out there for a couple of minutes, not talking. I was on the verge of giving up when I heard heavy footsteps inside the house. The door flew open and there was a large mahogany man wearing a purple towel standing there, grinning widely.

  “You’re the guy who called earlier?”

  “Yeah. I’m Mike, this is Trix.”

  “Yeah? Very cool eye art there, miss. C’mon in. Bit of a rush here.”

  The air inside was warm and salty. The place was pin-clean and retrotasteful, like someone had embalmed my grandmother’s house in 1976. He walked ahead of us, muscles moving under his skin like cats under a satin bedsheet. He was heavily built, and the weird artificial-looking mahogany brought out his muscle definition. He brought us into an old lady’s living room, laid a spare towel over the sofa, and sat, inviting us into big armchairs that smelled of old potpourri. He gave that big open grin again, big white teeth gleaming in his shaven mahogany head.

  “I’m Gary. You got to excuse my look, I just got back from a bodybuilding show. No time to shower.”

  He pressed his fingertip into his forearm and drew a line down it, exposing white skin.

  “Body stain. Brings out the shape under the lights. I compete.”

  “Did you win?” Trix smiled.

  “Ah, second place. Three hundred bucks. I do it for the extra cash, and three hundred’s better than a kick in the ass, right? I got this great trainer, English guy, but he’s pissed at me because I don’t stay in the gym all damn day. He’s got this picture he carries around with him from when he competed himself. Him in first place, some other guy in second, Arnold Schwarzenegger in third. He says to me, ‘I got first and lived on nothing but fresh pussy for the next two years. Arnie got third and lived in the gym and worked his guts out. And now he’s the governor of California and I’m training you, you arsehole.’”

  I don’t know what was wrong with me. I just wasn’t in the mood to make friends. Stupid, really. I was sick of it already, or sick of myself, or all that tangled up together.

  “I just want to know where the book is.”

  Gary grinned that big happy fucking stupid grin, teeth like Scrabble tiles glued into a coffee table. “Sure, I know. Sounds like you guys are on a real weird gig. What is that book, anyway? I mean, the guy told me it was valuable. I did okay out of it—made enough cash to fix up the house and the yard and had a few parties, you know? I’m interested now.”

  “It was stolen from important people, a long time ago. Where is it?”

  “Well, it ain’t here. Sold it, like I said.”

  “Who to?”

  “I got a receipt someplace. Damn sure it’s not worth the paper it’s written on, though, right?” Wide friendly grin. Every time his face gaped open I wanted to break a chair in it.

  “Just give me the fucking name.”

  “Mike,” Trix hissed.

  The grin shut down like someone threw a switch. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “You know what? I just started this case and I’m already sick of uppity perverts. The name.”

  Gary stood up. He didn’t have much height, but he was wide and solid. “Oh, is that what I am? Well, here’s the deal, private eye. I’ll give you the name. After you’ve partied with me and my friends a little. Or you can take a walk. Or I can kick your scrawny ass clean from here to the airport and you can fly back to where the weenie vanilla straight boys hide.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s my friends,” Gary said. “They’re bringing the needles.”

  Big evil grin.

  Chapter 12

  Eight very large and very gay men filled the living room.

  “This is Mike and Trix,” said Gary, glowering at me. “Mike wants to have an experience with us.”

  The tallest man in the room, an Aryan blond in a sprayed-on white T-shirt and bicycle shorts, appraised me without love and then traded looks with Gary. “He’s gonna wash first, right?”

  “Oh, we’re not going to party with Mike. I just want to shoot him up a little, and then he’s gonna head back to his hotel.”

  “Me, too,” said Trix. “I mean, I want to play, too.”

  “You know what we’re talking about, right?” Gary said.

  “Sure I do. There’s some guys in Boston who throw parties and put the photos up on their Web site.”

  “That’s Eugene,” a little redhead guy in black jeans hooted. “I love that guy. Visited him last summer. He took me whale-watching out on Boston Harbor.”

  “Isn’t he cool?” said Trix. “I saw all his photos. Always wanted to try this. I figured that if you infused my labia, it’ll feel a little like having balls, you know?”

  Feeling vaguely betrayed, I found Gary’s eyes and threw my best possible Murderous Gaze into them.

  “I’m armed, you know.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I’m a cop. I can spot a guy carrying from thirty feet.”

  How badly did I want this job? I could’ve just walked away from it there and then. Go back to New York, take a partial fee on the case. Hell, take no fee at all, chalk it up to more hideous experience. What fee was worth all this shit?

  Trix was watching me. She looked sad. She gave me a little smile, but that was sad, too.

  I sat down hard in the chair and dug my fingers into the arms.

  “You’re not injecting salt water into my testicles and that’s that.”

  Chapter 13

  This is where we shoot salt water into your testicles,” said Gary.

  He’d converted a big room in the back of the house into a huge walk-in shower room, with sound speakers recessed high in the walls.

  “You’re going to have to take your clothes off,” Gary observed. “Not that I’m looking forward to seeing you naked, believe me. You’re in shitty shape for a private detective.”

  “How many private detectives do you know?”

  “Well…there’s Magnum.”

  “Get away from me.”

  “Drop ’em.”

  “
So this is the deal. I let you do this thing to me, and I get the receipt.”

  “Right. And quit with the ‘do this thing to me’ like I’m gonna mutilate you or something. This’ll be fun.”

  “This is what you do for fun?”

  “I get some buddies around, we shoot some saline, we have fun. It’s a party thing. Play some music, have some drinks, you know. I mean, it’s not like we meet in alleyways and mutter, ‘wanna do some saline?’ It’s on the Web, right? Like your girlfriend said.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “You sure?”

  “I would have noticed.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Huh. Maybe not. She’s way cooler than you are. Straight people are so fucking weird.”

  Aryan Guy came in, stark naked and carrying steaming jugs of water. “Let’s give this guy some balls,” he laughed.

  Trix followed him in, holding a medical bag. She winked at me. “I want to see this.”

  “I’m your fucking thesis now?”

  “You need to relax,” she said, handing Gary the bag. “This is going to be a new experience for you. Just enjoy it for what it is.”

  “It’s being trapped in a shower with a gay cop who wants to mutate my nuts, Trix.”

  “Oh, will you unclench? Now get ’em off.”

  “Gary, does she have to be here?”

  “Trix wants to be here, man.”

  “I don’t want her to see me naked.”

  “Dude, none of us wants to see you naked.”

  “You don’t want me to see you naked?”

  I couldn’t judge from her voice what she really meant by that. Or possibly what I wanted her to mean by that.

  “Listen,” I said to Gary, “I’m her employer. It doesn’t seem…appropriate.”

  Trix gave an explosive sigh. “God, I hate that word. ‘Appropriate.’ It’s like, hang a sign around my neck reading I Am a Boring Asshole. Okay, whatever, I’ll go.”

  She stomped out, and I felt worse. Aryan Guy stood in front of me and folded his arms. “If you’re done shitting on your girl and generally dicking around, take off your clothes and we’ll all try real hard not to vomit on you. Now.”

  I stripped, picturing their corpses being eaten by weasels.

  “Jesus,” Aryan Guy said. “Last time I saw a body like yours it was dangling from a tree on CSI. Do you live on grease sucked straight out of burger-joint drains or something? I bet the only exercise you get is flushing the toilet.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Seriously, man. You’re like two steps from the graveyard.”

  “I have a rough life. My girlfriend left me for a transgendered dyke with hair implants in her nipples.”

  “And alarm bells should have been going off right there, man.”

  There was a burst of laughter from the living room, and Scandinavian pop started bubbling out of the speakers.

  “There we go.” Gary grinned, his hand in the black bag. “Now we’re having fun.” He split an IV tube out of its sterile wrapper.

  “Look, I’m sorry I got in your face before. I’m not having a good time here.”

  “Well, now you’re gonna have some fun.”

  Chapter 14

  Gary flicked on the showers, and I was doused in warm water.

  “Relax,” said Gary. “It makes your balls more pliable.”

  My balls felt like they’d climbed back up into my body and made a nest under my lungs.

  “You people really do this for fun?”

  “Man, you are such an asshole. Listen, when you were a kid, did you ever spin round and round on the spot until you were dizzy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…because I liked the feeling, I guess. Yeah, okay, I can see where this is going…”

  “So don’t be such a jerk about it. We like the feeling. It’s different, it doesn’t hurt anybody, and it goes away.”

  “It does go away?” I actually said that twice—the second time I got the borderline-hysterical squeak out of my voice.

  “Oh my God,” groaned Gary. “Were you raised by nuns or something? I figure you’re warm enough. Let’s go. Step out of the water.”

  He kept the water running; soft blankets of steam wrapped around me as I stood and faced my certain testicular doom. Gary crouched in front of me, and I fought not to flinch as he gently stroked one of my balls with a fingertip.

  “We should have shaved you. You’ve got a bush like a seventies porn star down here, princess.”

  “I hate you worse than Osama,” I hissed.

  Gary laughed out loud. “You are just too easy to freak out, you know that?” And then he jabbed the IV needle into my nuts.

  While I was yelping, Gary followed the tube back to one of the water jugs, and lifted out the warmed saline pack it was connected to. He held it up, and—Christ, I still grit my teeth and cross my legs just thinking about it—something awful with weight and temperature started flowing into my balls.

  I grunted and twisted around on my feet. “Will you relax?” snapped Gary. “Anyone would think I was poisoning you.”

  “Hhmmnrrgg” was about the cleverest response I could manage at that point. I knew I was wobbling. My testicles were flushed with heat, and getting heavier. I looked down out of one eye. My testicles were the size of a champion prize-grown onion I’d seen at a market gardening competition as a kid. And expanding. I shut my eye again, tight. It felt like I was smuggling cannonballs in my scrotum.

  “I can’t believe someone can be as tense as you and not die of something bursting,” Gary commented. “You need to get laid more than any human or animal I’ve ever met.”

  “I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening ever again,” I ground out between gritted teeth. “And I have a feeling kids are out of the picture now, too. You’ve cooked my guys.”

  “I may have done the world a favor,” he said thoughtfully.

  After what seemed like ten or eleven years, the flow finally stopped. Gary expertly yanked out the IV and thumbed a small, round adhesive dressing onto the puncture. The brine in my testicles rippled horribly. “That’s pretty good,” he observed. “Take a look.”

  I unclenched one eye again, swiveled it down, and screamed.

  Chapter 15

  Gary gave me a big blue towel, wrapped it around my waist as if he were dressing a child, and led shaky me back into the living room.

  “Well, Magnum here took it kind of like a man. He’s got balls now.”

  There was hooting and clapping, none of which I felt was especially kind.

  Trix said, “You really did it?”

  Gary laughed. “Sure he did.” And ripped the towel off me.

  It looked like someone had nailed a basketball to me.

  “That’s awesome,” Trix trilled, clapping some more. I had five seconds of feeling absurdly proud. Before, you know, realizing I was standing naked in front of Trix with mutated testicles and understanding that it pleased her in some way. At which point I grabbed the towel back and lashed it around me.

  Aryan Guy grinned. “Either he likes me, or he likes her.”

  And, oh God, she smiled at me.

  I turned to Gary. “Clothes. Receipt.”

  Gary sighed. “Clothes are in the next room, the guest bedroom. Receipt and some notes on what I remember about the guy are on top of them. Lots of luck, Magnum.”

  I moved to leave the room. Trix yelled, “My turn!”

  I saw Gary react. “You sure?”

  “I want balls now!” She giggled. “Mike, stay a while. I want to try.”

  I felt eight kinds of weird, and it was exhausting. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” I said, and went into the other room, shutting the door on them.

  The notes were cop notes, fragmented but comprehensible as a pen-portrait. They and the receipt did not fill me with pleasure. My crappy luck was holding on like a son of a bitch.

  As I realized when I looked at t
he neatly folded pile of my clothes on the bed.

  My pants were, of course, built for a man with normal testicles.

  I sat down gently on the edge of the bed and tried very hard not to cry.

  With my testicles laying on top of my legs.

  The music got louder. I could hear laughing, and clapping.

  I almost broke my back leaning over to pull my socks on. No way in hell I was going to attempt to get the underpants on. I’d go commando and take excruciating care with the zipper. The shirt was easy enough, but the main event was obviously going to be my pants. I awkwardly wrestled my feet through the pants legs, scrunching the thing down, and then lay back on the bed. I was suddenly reminded of a girlfriend from back when I was in my teens: watching her lean back and hump and writhe into a pair of stretch jeans, and thinking, Christ, she looks good in them and all, but is it really worth all that performance?

  Ho ho. Of course she wasn’t going to leave the house with her bits out in the open air. And neither was I. I hooked my fingers into the belt loops and dragged the pants up me an inch at a time. I told myself I was doing fine. Roomy pants. Not even a remote possibility that my balls were so grotesquely inflated that they couldn’t be packed inside. Hitching them up another inch. There we go, Mike. An inch over your nuts, you clever bastard you. Eeek. Cold zipper metal where it really really should never ever be. Lift up your ass, buy a little wiggle room…

  I got the top of my pants to fasten, and bent forward to see how I was doing.

  My general front-of-pants area looked like a watermelon stuffed in a kangaroo pouch. I could forget zipping myself up. But I found that if I left my shirt untucked, it draped over my testicles pretty well. Excellent. Jacket on, paperwork in pockets, and I was ready to go. I stood up and groaned. They felt heavier than ever before. Heading for the door, I was waddling more than walking, and I began to worry that this wasn’t going to work.

  The side of the house I was in was empty. Everyone was in the shower room, and having a wild old time by the sound of it. I waddled to the front door, my pants pressing hard enough on my balls to start me feeling sick. But I just had to get to the car. I got out the door, shut it behind me quietly, and my pants fastening burst.