Bronson shook his head. “Was wondering when the wolves would howl.”
“They want you to come up to Santa Monica to see them. They say they have something important to discuss that they can’t over the phone.”
Bronson nodded and walked out of the house.
36.
THE FRANKENBIKE RIDE on the 10 west to Santa Monica and a meeting with Praetorian at something called the Hotel Casa del Mar was mild relief. The freeway wasn’t the free ride that it was late at night, but any movement felt good to Bronson. When he slowed or stopped, his chest tightened and his temples throbbed with the great weight of what had happened, the killing gravity of it. At 80 m.p.h., the wind howling in his ears, he was still thinking, but it wasn’t as precise or repetitive. When he got off the 10, though, the thoughts rushed back in all their dark glory and the streets of Santa Monica looked like Hell paved over. When he arrived at the Casa del Mar, the valet guy didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle, which was just as well, ’cause Bronson didn’t have any cash on him. He left his bike at the corner and walked into the hotel.
Malouf was easy to spot at the bar. He was alone, no Maya. Bronson wondered if that was her call or Malouf’s. Malouf stood when he saw Bronson. “Sorry it’s just the beast and not the beauty, too. I hope this place is okay. Of course, I prefer Shutters, but I know too many people there, or I should say too many people there know me.”
“This is fine,” Bronson said.
“Can I get you a drink—oh, but you don’t drink, how about an Arnold Palmer—oh, but that’s caffeine—you’re a tough date, my Mormon friend. I know Mitt, you know. Good man. Bit of a stiff, but a good man. Could’ve beaten Barack Hussein Obama—should’ve. And then we wouldn’t have had the recession. Guess none of that mattered to you out in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’ll just have water. Do you mind getting to it, I’ve forgotten your name…”
“Bob Malouf. Bob. Like De Niro.”
“Okay.”
“Maya tells me you worked with Bobby De Niro. Midnight Run?” Bronson nodded. “That must’ve been exciting.”
“Sure,” Bronson said.
“‘Tell me what happened in Chicago, Jack,’ right? Classic. Tell me what happened in Rancho Cucamonga, Bronson—doesn’t have the same ring, though.” Bronson sipped his water. He used to know guys like this, rich guys who were essentially geeky fans who wanted to rub elbows with beautiful actresses and movie stars and punish all the pretty women who didn’t fuck them when they had no money. “Did Maya tell you I bought the whole Hammer library?”
“No.”
“Oh, I thought you guys talked a lot, pillow talk, thought you guys were … friends. Yeah, I wanna get more into the business of show.”
“Why not,” Bronson said absently.
“I’m not an artist, but I appreciate artists. My dad was an artist, a true artist, sculptor—worked with stone and wood, but when he moved here from Palestine, he could only find gainful employ as a carpenter on movie sets. That’s how I lost this finger.” He held up the four-fingered left hand and put it on Bronson’s shoulder, squeezing and checking the strength of his trapezoids. He was one of those guys who’d read that if you compliment people, they will trust you, Bronson thought—I’d like to take him over to Shutters and kick his ass in front of all his friends. “I hear you were a stuntman. Tough guy, huh?” Bronson stared straight ahead, like a still, stalking animal attuned only to the movement of the prey that concerned him, not the idle breeze in the trees. “Ever meet Bruce Lee?” Malouf asked.
“No.”
“Think you could take him?”
“No.”
Malouf pulled his hand away and continued, “Artists are shitty with money, so when they run out of it, if I like them, sometimes I buy their estates, with their debt, and then they get to live and spend again on an allowance I give them. They’re like children, and I end up with their art, their output. It’s a win-win. I did it with Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. King of debt, too, I might add—freed him from his financial shackles so he could sing again and delight us all. May he rest in peace. Come to think of it, Neverland reminds me of your hideaway, you know—a place where you can let your hair down and just be yourself, indulge your indulgences away from prying eyes. What did you call your place again?”
“Agadda da Vida.”
“Sounds like ‘Garden of Eden.’ Good for you. Every great man should have his own garden of earthly delights. The original Eden was in Iraq, you know, few hundred miles from where my dad was born. Where’s your dad from?” Bronson shook his head. He would not talk about his father with this man.
“Anyways,” Malouf shambled on, “did the thing I did with Michael with Annie Leibovitz, too, and that’s working out. You know who that is?”
“No.”
“Photographer. Celebrity photographer. Does all the Vanity Fair covers. She did a beautiful portrait of me on my horse.” Malouf was trying to make him beg. Bronson wasn’t going to beg. He finished his water; the bartender filled it up again. “I know I’m talking a lot about myself right now, but I want you to relax with me. I want you to know who you’re dealing with, that’s why I’m gabbing like a bitch.”
“I know who I’m dealing with.”
“Good. ’Cause you look bewildered, my friend, and I befriend the bewildered; it’s what I do,” Malouf said. “Oh, speaking of photography…”
Malouf reached into his pocket and pulled out a banged-up cell phone. Bronson knew it was a cell phone. Malouf put it up on the bar between them with a flourish. “That’s it,” he said.
“It’s what?”
“Look at the video.”
“I don’t know how.”
“That is fucking adorable.” Malouf took the phone and swiped at it like a magician casting a spell. “You’re adorable, you know that?” He handed the phone to Bronson. “Press the play arrow. You know what that is, don’t you?”
Bronson pressed and watched. It was footage of the fight between Hyrum and the other boys. It clearly showed that Hyrum had tried to avoid the fight with Hermano, that the kid had started the name-calling, actually hit Hyrum twice before Hyrum struck back. But beyond that, it showed (the audio was clear as well) that Hermano was committing the so-called hate crime, and Hyrum had acted mainly in self-defense. His son was innocent. This was great news.
But then, at one point toward the end, right before the killing fall, as the two bloodied boys caught their breath, Bronson clearly heard Hyrum say, “Die, Lamanite.” Die, Lamanite. Bronson felt dizzy. He pressed the square stop shape on the phone.
“Wait,” he said.
“What is it?” Malouf asked as Bronson tapped at the rewind. “Oh, look at you with the rewind. You learn fast. You see where Utah is moving fast to decriminalize polygamy? It’s gonna happen. Yeah, amazing—Salt Lake City, here we come.”
Bronson didn’t even hear. He watched again as his son said, “Die, Lamanite.” There was no mistaking it. As if he’d meant it. As if he’d meant to kill a holy man. As if he considered himself a usurping Nephite justified in killing a Lamanite. Murdering an Israelite! How had his boy come to identify with the murderous oppressors? Did his son somehow see himself in a religious war committing a ritual murder of one of God’s chosen people? Was this a hate crime after all, one hidden from any but eyes that could see into the deep past? Bronson reeled. This was completely unexpected, exactly the worst thing that had come to pass. He rewound a third time and watched the video from beginning to end, the image frozen on the boy facedown on the asphalt, dying. The phone felt like a gun in his palm.
“That,” Malouf said, taking back the phone, “is what our president likes to call ‘complete and total exoneration.’” Bronson didn’t get the reference, but that didn’t matter. None of that shit mattered. “I see your face. Don’t worry about the part where he says ‘Die, you lame something or other.’”
Bronson was not surprised Malouf focused on that moment; as much as he’d l
ike to think he was a jackass, the guy wasn’t a dummy. Even though he’d gotten the deep matter wrong of course, Bronson wasn’t about to correct him. He let Malouf continue, “We are gonna lift that ‘die’ part out, put a car horn over it, you’ll never know it was there. That’s the magic of sound editing, you know that as a stuntman. I’ll have pros do it, untraceable. Hollywood.”
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Nothing. Right now. It goes right back into my pocket, and before you get any ideas about trying to jump me and take it, please know that I’ve got people who can have it erased remotely as soon as I say so. You take that phone and I will destroy the only evidence that favors your son. Plus the ‘die’ part will still be in there. That’s troubling.” Yes, it was deeply troubling to Bronson, but not for the reasons Malouf assumed.
“Why do you have it if you’re not going to use it?” Bronson asked.
“Ah.” Malouf smiled. “Now you want me to keep talking, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Say please.”
He was a man who enjoyed nothing more than making another man beg. Bronson didn’t care. This wasn’t about him.
“Please.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to use it, I just didn’t say when. You, my friend, are about to get sued for all you are worth. Since you have no liquid assets, your land will be used as collateral and auctioned off at a fraction of its cost. You’ll end up with nothing and nowhere to live. Your little desert life, as you know it, is over.”
Bronson sat still; he wanted to punch this guy, but not yet, not yet.
“Or…” Malouf paused overlong, drawing out the word like an asshole. “I would like to suggest something else. Because I feel complicit in this tragedy, if I hadn’t okay’d Maya’s idea to try to get your land out from under you—you know that was her idea, don’t you? All her.”
Bronson didn’t know that, and the test didn’t matter anymore. It was all bad human animals doing bad things to other bad human animals in this godforsaken country. He wasn’t interested in assigning blame; he just wanted to make it all stop spinning away from him so he could salvage what was still holy. He had tried to make a magic circle out there in the desert and keep a small safe place for God, but the devil was too strong, too tricky.
The devil ordered another drink, and said, “I want you to keep your land and your way of life. I respect it. Like I respect artists. You’re a self-made man, a life artist, a man who makes his own rules and his own Garden of Eden. So I’m gonna save you—here’s my suggestion. You sell me seventy-five percent of your land at a very low rate, but not the pennies on the dollar the government will give you in five years, and I let you stay on your quarter parcel with as many fucking wives as you want—congratulations on that, by the way, I’ve had three wives, but only one at a time, and they each cost a fuckload. How do you do it?”
“My kingdom for a phone.”
“What?”
“I sell my land to you, then what?”
“Maybe you get Maya to come out there with you, jump in the pot, make more girl stew. Three wives at once? At your age? Good Lord. You must eat Viagra like Pez. Those are those little candies that come out of the neck of the thing…”
“I know what Pez is.”
Bronson kept looking blankly at Malouf, unblinking. Malouf enjoyed what he imagined the effort was that Bronson had to make to remain so stoic. He continued, “Maya might bail from my world. I don’t think she’s cut out for the game, the big leagues. Too much heart, two few balls. How is she in the ol’ sackaroony, by the way? Any good? I’d think affirmative. Ambitious girls can fuck. Tits real or fakeys?”
“So I sell some of my land to you, and then what?”
“Okay, you say your heart is broken and you can’t go back home anymore, you say you need liquidity to defend your son in court, to hire a dream team. I have friends that you will hire at great cost to defend you, maybe even Dershowitz is avail—the Dersh is a buddy—but anyway, guys on that level, killers that love the limelight; you’re also socking away a small fortune against the wrongful-death suit that these Mexicans will bring against your son and his family, meaning you.”
Malouf took a big swallow of his drink and continued, “We let the real estate deal cool down, get the whole thing out of the papers—the way news cycles go these days, I wouldn’t give it more than a month, two tops. We let the civil suit drag on—all my lawyer friends get paid, they’ll run stalling circles ’round these small-town Jacoby and Meyers, Cellino and Barnes ambulance chasers; we let the left-wing media run with it, jump on the bandwagon, and go all in against whitey—and then toward the end, we say—guess what, you Mexican motherfuckers, look what we found! We found the phone! Boom! Game over!”
“Why don’t we do that now? Show the phone to the cops now.”
“’Cause if we play the phone card now, then we can’t countersue!!! Oh, I’m gonna love that part where you countersue, accuse those Mexicans of a hate crime.”
“I don’t want to sue anyone. Seems like a waste of time.”
“I fucking live for a countersuit, and—this whole MeToo, PC, open season on whitey’s got me pissed off. No, this is a dish best served cold. This is the way to do it. It gives me time to make the moves I want to, develop the land, see what’s underneath, look under the hood. Don’t look at me like that, I’m a treasure seeker like your hero Joseph Smith, a money-digger. Oh yeah, I did a little research—Joe Smith originally used those stupid peep stones, Urim and Thummim, to look for silver in the ground, not God. So don’t you judge me. I’m getting you back to your true roots. You, my friend, are going to make me billions of dollars of treasure and bring me great emotional satisfaction. And your son is gonna be fine at the end of the day. Plus you get to go back to screwing all your wives. Do you get tired of three the way you get tired of one?”
Yes, young Joseph Smith had been a gold digger and a silver seeker, but he had turned himself around; he had become a seeker of God, a God digger. Men change. Bronson sighed. Malouf seemed pleased that he was exasperating the other man. He extended his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
“I need to think about it,” Bronson replied.
“There’s nothing to think about. I’ve done all your thinking for you. You don’t have a choice. But because you’re a real man and I respect that, I’ll give you a few days so you can tell yourself you’re running the show.” Bronson put his head in his hands. “Bet you wish you could drink now, huh?” Malouf teased. “Go ahead, I won’t tell.”
Bronson stood up. “I gotta talk to my family. I’ll get back to you in a couple days.” He turned and took a few steps, and then walked back close to the seated Malouf, looming over him. As Bronson approached slowly, he saw the other man flinch imperceptibly with the primal fear of physical harm. That gave Bronson a small kick of pleasure. He exhaled dismissively through pursed lips so Malouf knew he knew he was a coward. “I need a favor now, though,” Bronson said.
“How can I help?” Malouf’s voice cracked ever so slightly.
“I just need some money for gas, like ten bucks to get back to Rancho Cucamonga.”
“Who’s your best friend, Bronson Powers?” Malouf said as he opened his wallet. “All I got is Benjamins.”
He peeled one crisp hundred-dollar bill out of a thick sheath and handed it over. “You can owe me,” Malouf said.
37.
AT FIRST, not even the highway speed could clear Bronson’s mind. But about twenty miles from Rancho Cucamonga, a radiant insight came upon him, a clarity he usually got only in solitude, in the desert, with his peep stones. But tonight on his bike, one all-consuming thought started to outshine all the others, and a great calmness descended upon him as it was once described when the Holy Spirit calmed the waters in the beginning of time. “Yes,” he said aloud to himself, and the modern world and all its relativities and compromises disappeared so he felt like he was traveling a road in ancient Galilee or Palestine. He intuited a latt
er-day miracle beginning to happen, taking shape; he saw its epic outlines. He was not happy, but he was righteous. He felt absolute. “Yes,” he said aloud to himself as witness, “it shall come to pass.”
Bronson waited until after midnight to get Hyrum. He introduced himself as the boy’s father to the cop stationed by the door and let himself into the Rancho Cucamonga house quietly so as to wake no one. He visited each bedroom separately, like a ghost. First, Deuce, then Pearl, then Yaya; he tenderly kissed his sleeping children and his sleeping wife. Then he bent over Hyrum’s bed and lifted the boy in his arms. The boy’s lightness surprised him. This fifty-pound thing had vanquished a thing three times its size. Even in this time of mourning, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the kid’s fight, his warrior spirit. Bronson grabbed Hyrum’s knapsack as well and left the house quietly out the back way.
Hyrum woke up in Bronson’s arms on the way to the parked motorcycle. “Where we goin’, Dad?”
“Where there ain’t no Fortnite,” Bronson joked as he put Hyrum down on the ground.
“Come on, where?”
“Home.”
“I am home,” Hyrum said.
“No, you ain’t,” Bronson said, as he straddled the bike and motioned for Hyrum to get on as well.
Riding back to Agadda da Vida with a mind made up and his son’s arms wrapped around his waist, Bronson felt a rightness rise up in him that he had not experienced for many moons. He turned his head so his passenger could hear him. “You’re a good boy, Hyrum.”
“Respect,” Hyrum whisper-yelled in his ear.
“And I love you more than I can say, Pilgrim.” Bronson tried to share some of his revelatory clarity, calling back the old affectionate handle he’d had for all his little boys, lifted from John Wayne in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. “And I hope to be worthy of my love for you.”
“Mad love for you, too, Pops. You’re my ride or die,” Hyrum shouted over the wind. Bronson smiled. The ride was too short.
Truly Like Lightning Page 34
