by John Shirley
Los Angeles
Ephram was tired. But'they were nearly there. It was eight p.m., just getting dark in the California summer, and the Porsche was flying along the Santa Monica Freeway, on its way to Venice. There were more palm trees, now, and the traffic had eased. The sky was going brown-violet at the horizon.
He glanced at Constance. He felt the ache, again, that had been plaguing him. Her eyes were sunken. Why did this bother him? He knew it would happen. It always happened. Her expression was composed and happy. The way she kept it.
Ephram shifted down as the traffic thickened, people up ahead rubbernecking a minor accident.
She hates me, he thought.
Then he thought: No, she doesn't. Because I have her soul in my hands, and I make it perform for me like a small, trained animal; I squeeze it and reshape it like gelatin. She feels what she is commanded to feel. And it certainly wouldn't matter, if she did hate me.
The traffic slowed to a crawl; his attention was freed up. So he reached into her. Without even looking at her, no acknowledgement from him about what he was doing but a faint, smug smile on his lips; he reached into her brain with the 'plasmic fingers and squeezed her pleasure centre. She squirmed on her seat and moaned. He prompted her and, accordingly, she said: "I love you, Ephram."
He looked at her. No, she didn't love him.
He could make her mean it, though. He reached more deeply into her…
"I love you, Ephram," she said, turning to look at him, her eyes glazing with devotion, with sentiment. But her voice betraying a hint of desperation.
A black cloud swirled inside him. "No. you don't."
He reached over and grabbed her hand and began to squeeze her fingers together, hard. She whimpered with pain. "Now you love me?" he demanded. "When I do this to you?"
"Yes!"
He squeezed harder. Could feel the bones in her hand on the verge of cracking. She cried out.
He hissed, " Now you love me?"
"Yes. Yes." No pleasure in her now, just pain and fear and the steel corset of his command: Tell me you love me.
He let go of her hand, but reached under her skirt, grabbed her pubis, through the filmy panties and began to twist the soft handful of skin and flesh. "Now you love me?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes!"
She experienced no masochistic enjoyment of this whatsoever. He could see that clearly.
He twisted her crotch again. Harder. "You hate me."
"No, I love you."
"Hate me."
"Love you!"
He could let go of her mind and see what she said. She'd probably still say she loved him, out of fear.
"You disgust me," he said, letting go of her.
Then he gave her a charge of pleasure, to keep her quiet. She made a low, humming sound and nestled deeper into the leather of the bucket seats.
Maybe, he thought, if I spent enough time at it, I could make her really sincerely love me, giving her no option but that. Enough pressure on the mind would bend it into any shape at all. And that would be sincere love, wouldn't it? What sort of ridiculous contortions did people go though – and put others through – to make people love them, in ordinary relationships? This was more honest.
It would be real love. As much as there was such a thing as real love…
He wished it were night, so he could see the stars, look for guidance in the secret constellations. The sunset was taking its languorous, smog-blurred time. The lights of the city were glimmering brighter in the twilight. The drug dealers would be out on the street… And some of Denver's people, too, would be there…
Probably stupid to come to Denver's town. Could I be steering myself to self destruction, somehow? he wondered. Why did it matter so much what the girl felt today?
What was wrong with him?
He gave himself a small jolt of pleasure – something he was very cautious about doing, normally. Didn't want to bum himself out.
But he felt better, almost immediately. The evening took on a different cast. It went from tragedy to comedy.
When they drove up beside the traffic accident, they had a good long look It was worse than he'd imagined. There was blood and broken glass.
If he'd been here at the time, he could have made the victims of the traffic accident enjoy the crash, the mangling. Have to try that sometime. That'd be funny. A little auto-motive psychic tampering. That'd be a gas, ha ha.
The bitch hates me.
The San Fernando Valley
"I'm sorry, sir, we were told invitations only. You got to have a printed invite." He was a stocky, gum-chewing kid of about nineteen in a Burns Security uniform, with walkman earphones pulled down around his neck. He'd stopped them walking up the drive to Arthwright's place. It was a long, circular drive leading to a modern, jutting house with as many round windows as square ones. In the balmy evening, soft red and blue "Malibu" lighting painted blush and eyeshadow on the house's facade. The drive was ornamented with a cactus garden and miniature palms. Jags and Rolls-Royces and BMWs and Corvettes and the occasional Volvo lined the drive, nose to tail. "You can stay, sir," the security guard was saying to Jeff, "but -" He looked apologetically at Prentice and shrugged. "Sorry.''
Jeff said, "This is bullshit, this guy is my partner and he's a good friend of Arthwright's -" Both exaggerations. "- and Arthwright's gonna be pissed if he doesn't get in. He didn't know Tom was in town -"
"Forget it, Jeff," Prentice said. This was typical of Jeff – and of Prentice. Jeff was a pusher, a don't-take-no hustler; Prentice was a more cautious angler.
The guard was squaring his shoulders and shaking his head, when Jeff spotted Arthwright stepping out the gate to say goodbye to someone. Arthwright's voice came to them distantly. "I just wished you coulda stayed longer, Sol – it's so great to see ya -"
"Hey Zack! Zack!" Jeff fairly shrieked it.
Prentice winced. "Christ, Jeff, forget it!"
Arthwright was about to go back through the gate – he looked up, spotted Jeff, and strolled over, one hand in a pocket of his casual dinner jacket – worn with jeans – the other scratching the back of his head. "What's the problem – um, you're Jeff, right?"
"Yeah, man. Jeff Teitelbaum. You know my buddy Tom Prentice here – we're having some trouble getting past the Gestapo -"
The guard heaved a theatrical sigh. "You told me no invite no entrance, Mr. Arthwright."
"That's okay, Billy, I got this one covered. Keep at it." Arthwright waved for Jeff and Prentice to follow him.
"Look, I don't mean to crash the place, Zack," Prentice began. "Jeff seemed to think since he had an invite it was for two -"
"Sure, sure, no prob," Arthwright said, leading them in through the wooden backyard gate. There was a TV camera mounted on a pole above the gate post. Prentice could feel its cold lens watching the back of his neck as they went in.
"Make yourself to home," Arthwright said, in a mimicry of a generic country accent, "and I'll get you a drink." He stepped up to a small, portable bar that had been rolled in on casters, spoke to the bartenders, good-looking Mexican fellows in white tuxedos.
Prentice looked around. Jeff had said it was a Pool Party, but no one was in the pool. No one was even in a swimming suit. They milled about the ornamental-tile verge of the pool with cocktails and little plates of mesquite grill, or sprawled in aluminium loungers, in the soft rippling of reflected chlorine-tinted pool-lights. Soft Mexican music played from hidden speakers.
"Our special Sangria," Arthwright said, returning with a frosted glass in each hand. He passed them to Jeff and Prentice, winked, and said, "Party hearty." And vanished into the house.
"He wasn't pleased," Prentice said, feeling humiliated by the whole episode. "We probably pissed him off. And I'm trying to get a deal with him."
"He's probably embarrassed you didn't get an invitation," Jeff said. "Don't worry about it."
"Last thing you want to do is embarrass a guy like that." He forced himself to add, "But thanks for getting
me in."
"You hungry?" Jeff asked. "I'm starved. But I don't like this mesquite stuff. Trendy bullshit. They had catered Dim Sum at the Studio's release party -"
"And Dim Sum's not trendy? You must be kidding. It's like Sushi. Most Americans can't stand that stuff but they choke it down -"
"Hey I fackin' love Sushi, man. God, check out that platinum blonde. Holy shit. God, do the legs never stop on her? Be still, my heart."
"Your heart's not the organ in question."
"Oh, listen to Mr. Sensitive. Boy, you stupped so many of these bimbos -"
"Not these, I'm sorry to say. You think maybe that one's had surgery? Her breasts are too perfect."
"Not necessarily. There're more beautiful girls – oh God look at that one, half Japanese and half black. That's, like, the most beautiful combination – uh, anyway," Jeff went on, after breathlessly gulping his Sangria, "there really are more beautiful girls in Los Angeles. It's the movies, they draw 'em like a magnet. For seventy some years now. All that money, all that glamour draws 'em, and they come here and get married and they have kids and there's a whole gene pool of incredible women here -"
"And guys who look like that one." Prentice nodded toward a tanned, muscled young Adonis in a muscle shirt and loose, fashionable, San Francisco tie-dye pants. He strolled by, talking about His New Project with an anorexic model-who's-really-an actress.
"Guys who look like that make me sick and they should all die," Jeff said, joking but with a spice of real envy.
"Half of these people probably had cosmetic surgery, man. Five years ago all these L.A. Jewish Princesses had their noses clipped and straightened – now it's fashionable to have a prominent nose with a little bump so they're having the bumps put back! I'm serious!"
Jeff and Prentice wandered slowly through the crowd, catching bits of conversations, checking out the Looks. A group of tanned, muscletoned people with elaborate razorcuts were passionately arguing about the benefits of free weights as compared to Nautilus machines. Another group advised one another on where to get Sushi without any worms in it. There were trendy punks too, the Beverly Hills variety with all their rebellion acquired in expensive Melrose shops; there were a great many people in white peon shirts, with raw crystals on thin gold around their necks. At least half the crowd drank Perrier and Calistoga instead of cocktails and Sangria and the Mexican beer. Only once did Prentice spot two people disappearing into the bathroom together. "Hardly anyone does cocaine anymore," Prentice said, "And that's good, and health is in so a lot of people don't drink, and that's okay, but it's like they all replaced it with Narcissism. Even the women are body builders."
Jeff nodded. "I'm getting back into working out myself. Hey, we sneer about it cause we're in bad shape. I'd love to look like Mr. Perfect over there, I admit it. But no way I'm gonna give up drinking. I'm gonna get that bartender to put a big shot of tequila in this thing."
"I'm with you, man."
They went to the bar, stiffened their drinks, and ran into a few of Jeff's friends and a line producer Prentice had worked with. A couple of drinks later, Prentice began to relax. The Mexican music was replaced by another trendy appurtenance, a House Music DJ who played mostly hip-hop mixed with 60s Motown classics. A dozen couples danced self-consciously beside the pool. Arthwright waved cheerily at Prentice as the producer threaded through the crowd. This time Arthwright seemed genuinely friendly. Maybe this was the moment to hit him up about commissioning the script. Or at least get some kind of feedback.
No. Chances were Arthwright hadn't read it yet and, though lots of Business was done at parties, it wasn't initiated by a guy lower on the pecking order. Talk of business at a social event had to be among equals, or initiated by the holder of power; the one clinging to the higher rung. Anyway, Arthwright had gone from view, now, sucked into the social vortex.
But he reappeared minutes later with the platinum blonde in tow. She was a tall, busty, blue-eyed woman, tanned and leggy, very much the California girl except for the black lace see through corset under her open red shorty jacket; the black lace corset was more of a New York club-scene look. She wasn't wearing any crystals, at least. She had ceramic Mexican Festival of the Dead ear-rings shaped like happy skulls, and figured-silver snake bracelets with little emerald chips for their eyes, and a rather cryptic tattoo on one shoulder. He couldn't quite make out the pattern…
"Tom, this is Lissa," Arthwright said, grinning like one of the Mexican skulls. "She wanted to meet you – she's a fan of Broken Windows!"
"Really? A woman of rare taste," Prentice said, "especially if you actually bought a ticket in the five minutes before it went to video." Trying for charming self deprecation.
She smiled. There was a ruby in her one of her incisors. "Oh yeah. I bought a ticket and everything."
Arthwright had drifted away and Prentice felt at a loss for a moment. She looked at him with finely tuned expectancy. He went for it. "You one of the 12-step crowd that only drinks mineral water, or can I get you a drink?"
"I'd really love a beer," she said. Her voice was husky, warm, its tone seeming to say, Don't worry about it. Just take it easy and we'll be fine.
He went hurriedly to the bar. Jeff was at the other end, hitting on a skinny girl with Mayan designs cut into the hair on the sides of her head. Ordering the beer, Prentice had a moment of uncertainty about whether to include the slice of lime; lime with beer had gone from hip know-how to unhip fad, lately, but she might expect it. He discarded the lime, and came back to her with the beer, and she smiled and said, "Dead on."
Prentice was feeling better about the party all the time. Sure, the girl was probably going to be a typical L.A. air-head, but what the hell. Take some time and live, man, he told himself. Maybe the sense of emergency that'd been dogging him was a phantom. Maybe Mitch's disappearance wasn't really his problem. and it wasn't so important. Maybe it was time he put Amy out of his head too. Because there was nothing he could do about her. And as a lot of L.A. bumper stickers said, Guilt sucks.
"So – you work with Zack?" he asked. As if he were on a first name basis with Arthwright.
"Well, not yet. I'm a model. But really I'm an actress…"
He nodded mechanically – then she giggled behind her beer bottle. "You nod so gravely, but I saw the look in your eyes. I was kidding. I'm not a model or an actress. I'm a secretary at the studio. But Zack fucked me a couple of times and, in consequence, he feels like he has to invite me to parties so he doesn't feel like a shit."
He almost choked on his drink.
"I'm sorry," she went on. "Am I supposed to be less candid than that?"
"No, no – that's great -" He laughed. "You got me twice. Once with bullshit and once with the truth."
"Yeah. You're fun. Maybe I can say something to make you trip and fall into the pool."
"Have mercy, okay?"
"Oh, all right. I really did like Broken Windows.
I thought I saw that funny-and-sad middle period of Truffaut's in there."
"Yep. You got my influence on a platter. That period of Truffaut and – sometime I'd like to do an updating of Noel Coward."
"Noel Coward for the 90s – that's almost a high concept pitch. Except the illiterate MBA's that run things around here never read him or saw his plays."
"Good point," he admitted. "You like Kurosawa?"
The conversation veered between film makers and novelists and painters, and Prentice felt good about it. He felt he was coming off up to date and reasonably witty. Necessary groundwork for getting laid.
The innuendo flickered from time to time, the flirtation, the lingering moments of eye contact. Then she said, "Hey – let's go look at Arthwright's etchings. I wanta show you something…" She led him away by the wrist as Jeff watched, catching Prentice's eye to put on a comical look of disgusted envy.
Near Malibu
The same moment: another party. A flame-twisted shadow of the party at Arthwright's…
Mitch was watching it out
the window, peering between rose-vines. There was music playing, that foreign sounding music with its slightly-warped record but an unwavering beat. There were people dancing but they had the look of extras dancing in a rehearsal for a movie, just going through the motions in an absent sort of way. There were knots of people talking with drinks in their hands, but they all seemed forced and furtive; and each one glanced, now and then, toward the doors of the guest house. Or toward the green, green darkness of the pool.
There was a wind; the roses nodded heavily on their vines. Trees at the edge of the backyard, their clutch of leaves scaly with the slippery sulfur light of the fire, swayed like stoned junkies. But despite the wind the surface of the pool was motionless, glassy as polished green-black obsidian. Perhaps the houses blocked the wind down there (did he hear a noise from the next room – something scraping across the floor? Weren't those two dead yet?) but no, he could see the breeze lift the lank blond hair of a sunken eyed hipster standing six feet from the water, and hustle a few brown leaves along the pool's edge. But the water remained motionless.
Maybe it just looked that way from this distance. (A drawn out scrape from the next room. Why didn't they…)
The light came from the moon, from a couple of table lamps brought out on extension cords, looking awkwardly out of place. Couldn't the dude afford better? Not one of his priorities.
And there was more light from a fire in an outdoor fireplace…
No, it was a bonfire, Mitch saw, looking closer. And it was made up of chairs. A couple of the wooden chairs that had been scattered around the terrace had been piled together. Someone had shoved rags under them and lit the whole thing on fire. The crumbling, burning frames of the chairs looked like the weird geometric structures you saw in your head when you hallucinated on drugs…
Thinking about drugs made him think about the Head Syrup. The painkillers weren't enough.
Someone came into the three intersecting circles of light – the larger wavery yellow circle from the fire, the two smaller duller steady circles from the lamps at opposite corners of the terrace. It was a tall, thin woman with stooped shoulders and hanging, flattened breasts – he could see her tits clearly because she'd slipped out of the arm-loops of her gown and peeled it down to her waist so it hung like an apron. She was walking from the guest-house, carrying something that squirmed in her right hand. It was a thatchy yellow cat. She had it by the tail. She approached the fire and swung the cat underhand into the fullest depths of the flames. Completely engulfed, blinded and turning itself end over end in nerve-rioted confusion, the cat managed only one single high note of anguish before it went into shock.
