Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  “Hi. Still mad?” he said when she came on the line.

  “Mad? What makes you think I was mad?”

  “Oh, I don’t know; maybe the way you called me a corpse lover and stormed out of Taix the other night.”

  “I was just upset about this magical mystery tour of yours.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “Mac, I worry about you. You seem … different.”

  “It’s been a traumatic week for me. Why don’t you come over and we can make up tonight.”

  “Hey, I would, but I’ve got this really important photo session.”

  “On Sunday night?”

  “The photographer will do it for special friends.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t say uh-huh like that. He’s gay, if it makes you feel any better.”

  “It does. Well, how about letting me take you to dinner tomorrow, then. Anyplace you name.”

  “Anyplace?”

  “Name it.”

  “L’Hermitage.”

  Fain’s throat tightened at the mention of the expensive French restaurant; then he remembered that he had banked twenty thousand of Elliot Kruger’s dollars, with another ten thousand coming whenever Richard got through screwing around with the paperwork.

  “You got it,” he said expansively.

  He felt a little better after talking to Jillian, but the feeling soon ebbed. Two days ago the phone would not stop ringing. Now the apartment seemed unnaturally silent.

  “Fame to obscurity in three days,” he grumbled. “I wonder what the world’s record is.”

  By four o’clock Fain had sunk into a depression. Collapsed in his recliner, he stared glumly at a terrible old Elvis Presley movie on television.

  A knock on the door jogged him out of his stupor. He got up and yanked open the door to find Barry Lendl standing outside. The little agent was looking nervously back down the steps to where a metallic-gray Mercedes 380SL roadster was parked at the curb.

  “Am I safe down there?” he said.

  “As long as it’s daylight,” Fain told him.

  Looking doubtful, Lendl came inside. “Nice place,” he said without looking around.

  “It’s home.” Fain thumbed off the television set.

  “You got anything on tomorrow night?”

  “Well, a date.”

  “Cancel it. I got you a spot as featured speaker at the Eastside Social Club banquet.”

  “What is that?”

  “These are some important people in the Latino community. For us it means a cool three hundred dollars.”

  “Wow.”

  “Hey, we got to start somewhere. You telling me you can’t use three hundred dollars.”

  “I can use it,” Fain said, “but I’m curious why these guys would want to hear me.”

  “You got a soda? Perrier? Anything like that?”

  “Ginger ale.”

  “Sugar-free?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well, I’ll take it. You ought to keep sugar-free.”

  Fain went to the kitchen and uncorked a bottle of Canada Dry. He poured it into a glass over ice and brought it out to Lendl, who perched on the vinyl seat of the recliner.

  “Now what about these merchants?” Fain said.

  “The truth is you aren’t exactly their first choice. I had Carmela Lopez booked for the banquet, but she came down with dysentery.”

  “Who is Carmela Lopez?” Fain asked.

  “She’s very big on Channel Thirty-four. They call her Thunder Thighs.”

  “And you expect me to go on for Thunder Thighs?”

  “You got something better to do?”

  “Not really, but — ”

  “They were gonna go fifteen hundred for her. Naturally I couldn’t get that for you, but I managed to talk them up from two to three.”

  “Barry,” Fain said carefully, “I don’t even speak Spanish.”

  “Not to worry, amigo. Most of these dudes talk English.”

  “What am I supposed to say to them?”

  “Just general bullshit about life after death, that kind of thing. Throw in a trick like that spoon business you did for me. They’ll love it.”

  “You think so? Barry, I haven’t even started to put together any kind of a lecture.”

  “No sweat, compadre. Wing it. Give ‘em five minutes of generalities, then call for questions. They’ll carry it for you from there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Mac, do you trust me?”

  “I can’t think of any reason why I should.”

  “I’ll let that slide. I know the money is not huge, but this could lead somewhere. I happen to know TV is covering the banquet.”

  “Channel Thirty-four.”

  “Hey, it’s better than nothing.”

  “Tell me something, Barry. Do these people know Thunder Thighs won’t be there?”

  “Their program chairman knows, guy named Silvera, but I didn’t exactly broadcast the news.”

  “Oh, great. Well, I suppose I have to eat somewhere.”

  Lendl smoothed his thin hair across the speckled scalp. “Actually, the speaker’s fee doesn’t include dinner. I thought you’d rather have the money than heartburn.”

  “You’re asking me to speak to a bunch of strange Mexicans on an empty stomach?”

  “Mac, do you and me have a deal? Did we shake hands?”

  Fain nodded reluctantly.

  “Then do this thing for me. Don’t worry; I’ll be there to pull you out of any rough spots.”

  “Rough spots? What rough spots?”

  “That’s what I’m saying; I’ll be there to make sure there aren’t any. Trust me, baby.”

  “I don’t know why,” Fain said, “but I’ll do it.”

  “Terrific. I’ll go start the ball rolling. Say, Mac, I’d rather not drive the ‘cedes in that part of town. Can you pick me up?”

  “What about my Camaro?”

  “How old is it?”

  “Seventy-nine.”

  “They won’t touch it. Six o’clock okay?”

  “I guess so.”

  Lendl wrote down an address in Beverly Hills — the wrong side of Sunset. “See you then, amigo.”

  “Arrivederci.”

  Fain stood in the doorway and watched Lendl hurry down to the street, where he walked slowly around the Mercedes, counting the hub caps before he got in and drove away.

  • • •

  Jillian Pappas was not happy to hear about the change in plans.

  “What you’re telling me is no L’Hermitage,” she said.

  Fain smiled disarmingly at the telephone. “There’ll be other times, honey. This is the first thing Lendl has set up for me, and I couldn’t very well turn it down.”

  “No, heck no.”

  “So listen, why don’t you come along?”

  “To this Mexican banquet?”

  “Eastside Social Club.”

  “What time is dinner?”

  “Uh, we won’t exactly be eating there.”

  “Oh?”

  “You wouldn’t want to sit there through four courses of tamales and enchiladas?”

  “I don’t want to sit there at all.”

  “Hey, it might be fun.”

  “Listening to you talk about raising corpses?”

  “You don’t have to make it sound so ugly.”

  “Tell me how to make it sound pretty.”

  “Jillian, don’t fight me.”

  “Who’s fighting? I just don’t want to go and listen to you tell a lot of Mexicans how you bring people back from the dead, okay?”

  “Well, how about Tuesday? You busy then?”

  “I think so. Mac, I gotta go.” Click. Buzz.

  “Same to you, fella,” Mac said to the dead phone, and dropped it into the cradle.

  Ten minutes later when the phone rang, he let it go five rings before picking it up. No use letting Jill think he was poised there waiting for her to call back and apolog
ize.

  “Hi, Mac, you busy?” The voice was Ivy Hurlbut’s, not Jillian’s.

  “Hello, Ivy.” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his tone.

  “Hey, if you’re not tied up tonight, I thought we might get going on the book.”

  “You heard from Bantam?”

  “Well, no, but a local outfit called Astro is interested.”

  “I don’t think I know them.”

  “They’re not one of the bigs, but as they say, better than nothing.”

  “Yeah.” Nothing seemed to be going the way it was supposed to. Fain had a momentary impulse to get out the tarot deck and ask it what was happening.

  “Well? How about it? Want to do some work?”

  “Sure. Come on over.”

  • • •

  Ivy showed up an hour later, wearing a Coors T-shirt and a pair of jeans tight enough to squeak. She brought a portable tape recorder and a bag of cassettes.

  “I talked to Lendl. He says you’re giving a lecture tomorrow night.”

  “So I hear.”

  “Can I come?”

  “Sure, if you want to.”

  “It might be something I can use. I’ll see if I can get Olney Zeno to come and take pictures.”

  “How about a drink?” he said. “Do you like margaritas?”

  “Love ‘em.”

  Fain went out to the kitchen and mixed a blenderful of margaritas — the real kind, with fresh lime juice, triple sec and tequila. None of that slushy foam the bars were serving.

  They sat side by side on the sofa and sipped the drinks. Ivy fiddled with the tape recorder.

  “This is the first time I’ve used one of these,” she said. “I don’t know what to ask first.”

  “How about do I sleep in the nude?”

  “I already know the answer to that one.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She pressed the RECORD key and started the machine.

  “Why don’t you just give me your life story in your own words.”

  “Okay, but I warn you, it’s not very exciting. I was born and grew up in Muskegon, Michigan. Straight-arrow, Norman Rockwell family. Not rich, not poor. Comfortable. Average student. Went to college at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo.”

  “Is that really a town?”

  “So help me. I took psychology, graduated with a useless B.A. degree. Went to Chicago with a vague notion of getting into advertising. Struck out. Went to New York, got mugged twice, ran out of money. Hitchhiked to California ten years ago. Figured if I was going to starve, I might as well be warm while I did it. Started the occult dodge and found out I was good enough to make a living of sorts at it. And here I am.”

  “I have a feeling you’re leaving something out,” Ivy said.

  “Probably, but you go ahead and fill it in with some of those spicy facts you people specialize in.”

  “I’ll ignore that,” she said. “Any brothers or sisters?”

  “Nope, I was the only one. Dad was over forty when I was born. My mother was about the same age. I guess they’d about given up.”

  “Are your parents still alive?” Ivy asked.

  “My mother died when I was seven. Dad’s retired now and living in Fort Lauderdale. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, but we write.”

  Ivy squirmed uncomfortably on the sofa.

  “I warned you my life hasn’t been all that fascinating.”

  “It’s not your life,” she said. “It’s these jeans. They’re not letting me breathe.”

  “You know what I’d suggest?”

  “Take ‘em off?”

  “Right.”

  “Good idea.”

  After considerable tugging and grunting, she managed to pull off the jeans. Fain was not greatly surprised to see that she wore no underwear.

  “Okay, where were we?”

  Fain gulped his margarita and refilled the glasses. “Do you expect to get a coherent interview out of me with you sitting there bareass?”

  “It was your idea.”

  “So it was. Want to hear another idea?”

  “Try me.”

  He tapped the recorder. “Is this thing still running?”

  She punched the OFF key. “Not anymore.”

  “Let’s move the show into the bedroom.”

  “Don’t you ever do it on the couch?”

  “Only if I’m in a terrible hurry.”

  “You’re pretty conventional under the funky facade, aren’t you?”

  “It’s the Midwest upbringing.”

  He stood up, slipped one arm behind her back, the other under her bare bottom, and carried her into the bedroom.

  “What about my tape recorder?”

  “You can take notes,” he said.

  There were not a lot of preliminaries. Mac was not in the mood, and Ivy did not seem to require it. They came together forcefully and with a mutual hunger. It was over in less than twenty minutes.

  They lay naked side by side for a while; then Ivy said, “Tell me about your other hobbies.”

  Chapter 14

  Mac Fain locked up the Camaro and gave it a friendly pat, hoping he would see it again. Then he joined Lendl and Ivy Hurlbut on the sidewalk.

  He looked up and down the block on Whittier Boulevard without enthusiasm. The stores were dark and locked, with folding steel grates pulled across the fronts. The only sign of life was the Sonora Café, which occupied the ground floor of the building where they had parked. A red neon sign in the window advertised Carta Blanca. Recorded salsa music could be heard faintly from inside.

  Near the café entrance lounged several dark young men in muscle T-shirts and tight-fitting jeans. They wore colored shoelaces that identified their gang. The young men watched the three Anglos impassively, letting their eyes linger on Ivy Hurlbut.

  Lendl led the way past the café and up a narrow flight of stairs to Chavez Hall, where members of the Eastside Social Club were holding their banquet. The spicy aroma of chilis was enough to bring tears to the eyes.

  At the top of the stairs they were stopped by a scowling Mexican woman seated at a desk. Lendl identified himself and party. The woman checked them against a list and let them pass, not looking happy about it.

  Inside, a trio of guitar, bass guitar, and mandolin provided non-stop music to which nobody seemed to be listening. Busboys hustled around clearing dishes off three long tables. At one end of the large room a smaller table stood on a riser at a right angle to the others. The men seated there wore suits and neckties, while the diners down below were more informal. A gray-haired man at the speakers’ table said something in Spanish into a microphone. The diners laughed and applauded, and the man sat down, looking pleased with himself.

  The laughter died gradually, and the eyes of the diners turned toward the newcomers. The crowd was not what Fain had expected. He was looking for something like a Mexican Rotary dinner, but this was more like a Gonzales family picnic. Whole families sat together, from elderly grandparents to lively dark-eyed children who raced among the tables, paying little attention to their parents’ orders to sit down and shut up.

  “Looks like a fun crowd,” Fain muttered to Barry Lendl.

  When they had stood uncomfortably in the doorway for a minute, a chesty, pockmarked man got up from the speakers’ table and came over.

  “You looking for somebody?”

  “I’m Barry Lendl,” said the agent. “I talked to a Mr. Silvera on the phone.”

  “That’s me. Frank Silvera, program chairman.” He looked Fain over with cold eyes. “This your man?”

  “McAllister Fain,” said Lendl. “The man you’ve been reading about.”

  “I don’t read that much.” Silvera nodded toward Ivy. “Who’s this?”

  “Miss Hurlbut,” said Lendl. “She’s writing a book about Mr. Fain.”

  “You didn’t say she was coming.”

  “No extra charge,” Lendl said with a twinkle.

  Silvera looked at him coolly. “We b
etter get up by the microphone. The kids are getting restless.”

  He turned and headed back toward the speakers’ table. Ivy and Fain exchanged a look.

  Lendl nudged them along after Silvera. “It’s going to be terrific,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  Behind the speakers’ table a young woman in pancake makeup and two men stood by a cluster of television equipment bearing the Channel 34 logo. One of the men balanced a Minicam on his shoulder. The woman talked briefly to Silvera, glanced over at Fain and his party, and signaled for the two men to start packing up.

  “There goes TV coverage,” Fain said. “I guess I’m just no Thunder Thighs Lopez.”

  At the speakers’ table an extra chair had to be brought for Ivy and squeezed in beside Fain. Frank Silvera stood up and clanked a spoon against a glass for attention. The crowd settled slowly. Silvera blew into the microphone, bringing a whoosh of static from the cheap suitcase speaker.

  “Unfortunately,” Silvera said, “as you know, we couldn’t get Carmela Lopez at the last minute.”

  Fain groaned softly. The crowd grumbled.

  “But I was lucky in being able to get Mr.” — he checked his notes — “McAllister Fain.”

  No response.

  “He is the man who was in the paper for bringing a dead woman back to life.”

  Small rustle of interest.

  “Mr. Fain kindly agreed to come here to tell us how he did it.” Silvera shoved the small table microphone over in front of Fain.

  Mac stood up and cleared his throat. Before he could speak, a piercing squeal cut through the room. Silvera rose and glowered toward the wall where the speaker was plugged in.

  “Hey, you kids get away from there. Pronto! ”

  The children backed off a little, and the feedback squeal stopped. Fain looked around at the fifty or so people watching him and wished mightily that he was somewhere else.

  “Buenos noches,” he said, using up all the Spanish he had prepared for the evening. The reaction was nil. “I know you were expecting Carmela Lopez tonight, and I hope you’re not too disappointed. Well … anyway, I’ll tell you a little bit about who I am and what I do, and then you can ask questions. Maybe we’ll all learn something.”

  Fain looked around and saw not one smile on all those dark faces. Quit being clubby and get to the serious stuff, he told himself. He grabbed a water glass from the table and drained it, wishing it were something a lot stronger. Stealing a nervous glance at his watch, he began to speak, improvising as he went along.