“Valyusha, our Grishka is gone,” he gushed, and collapsed on her shoulder.
“Are you drunk? Idiot.” She shook him, trying to find his face. “What the hell you’re talking about?”
“He’s dead, Valya!” slobbered Ivan Denisovich. “Something’s burning in the kitchen.”
Valentina stood there blocking the entrance, staring not so much at Ivan Denisovich as inside herself. She pushed him out of her way and dashed downstairs, her slippers flapping against her rough bare heels.
“He’s not there,” yelled Ivan Denisovich, and followed her down, holding onto the railing.
Valentina darted to the corner and looked up and down the street, then froze, watching Ivan Denisovich’s solitary figure approach her. His shoulders sank and his face turned sullen. He opened his arms to embrace her, uncertain which one of them needed to be held more.
“No. No, no.” She pushed him away. “He can’t do this to me.” She folded her arms and pursed her lips as if plotting revenge for Grigory Petrovich’s return.
“Come,” Ivan Denisovich said quietly. “Let’s go in. You’ll burn down the house.”
They sat on the sofa holding onto each other. The TV flickered with grainy images from Russian Candid Camera. A pretty young woman with fake hair glued to her back asked strangers on the beach to help her apply sunblock. Some laughed, some were disgusted and walked away, and some expressed sympathy to the poor girl, suggesting electrolysis. The phone rang ten times, but Valentina and Ivan Denisovich didn’t move, staring at the TV screen.
Ivan Denisovich suddenly felt what he hadn’t felt for a long time. He wasn’t sure if it was Valentina or the hairy woman in a bikini on the screen. He glanced at Valentina’s soft round breasts, something he had avoided for the last twenty years. That one time was a mistake, they shouldn’t have done it, and Valentina and he agreed to keep it a secret from their spouses. They didn’t even particularly like each other, but there they were. He always thought it was her fault, all that ass swish-swooshing she liked to do, and those low-cut dresses she flaunted. He used to tell Grigory Petrovich that this kind of exhibitionism wouldn’t lead to anything good, but Grisha liked it. Ivan Denisovich later wondered if his friend knew about them, and even stopped seeing Grigory for a few years. He also wondered if she ever did it with anyone else. Secretive little wench. She knew what she was doing.
Ivan Denisovich watched Valentina’s hand go up and down her thigh. It was like a tic. She hadn’t stopped for ten minutes. Just rubbing and rubbing, rubbing and rubbing. He cleared his throat. Valentina’s daughter and grandchildren were not coming back for another two hours. Was she thinking the same? Did she know what he was thinking? He suddenly wanted to undo her dress and spill her soft large body onto the sofa.
“Oy, kak pusto! Kak strashno! Oy, Vanya, why?” She tossed from side to side over the barely rumpled sheets. “So lonely … so scary. So empty … so alien …” She glanced at him, sitting on the side of the bed. “Even you,” and she wrapped her face in the pillow to muffle her weeping.
Ivan knew he should hold her, try to calm her down, but he was overwhelmed by what had just happened, and couldn’t bring himself to touch Valentina again. The thought of embracing her warm, flaccid body whose faint perspiration had a completely foreign flavor nauseated him. He turned away, and another smell, Grigory Petrovich’s dear smell, wafted from the pillow, and he noticed a few strands of his friend’s hair on it. He simultaneously wanted to throw the pillow against the wall and bury his face in it forever.
Ivan Denisovich reluctantly patted weeping Valentina on her broad undulant back and grabbed his boxers off the chair.
The sun was down and the apartment would soon fill with children’s laughter, regardless of what had happened.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asked, pulling on his pants.
“No, we’ll manage. We always do, we have to,” Valentina sniffled, wiping her nose on the discarded T-shirt. “You ain’t Grisha, don’t even try.”
She stood up and undid her rollers in front of the black lacquer vanity that had been purchased from the same store as Sofia’s. She suddenly seemed taller, more imposing, despite her bright pink bra and underwear. Her peroxide-blond hair slipped down her round shoulders in large stiff waves.
“Nuuh, what are you staring at? Haven’t seen a naked woman?” she smirked, shaking out her curls like a girl.
“No, I’m just …” and he realized he hadn’t for some time.
“Sveta, pass the fish,” said Sofia Arkadievna to her daughter. “Oy, I still can’t get over it.” She squeezed Ivan Denisovich’s arm in sympathy.
The TV was on, a low hum in the back of the room. Sveta and her husband Alex had stopped by for dinner. Ivan Denisovich noticed they always came to eat at the end of the month, probably ran out of money. No wonder. Her husband was an idiot, spending money on stupid haircuts and designer T-shirts. He was not a husband, he was a liability.
“Pap,” said Alex, chewing the fish and mashed potatoes with his mouth open.
Where did she find this treasure? Well worth immigrating for.
“I have a name.”
“Oh, c’mon, Pap, we’re all family here.”
“Grigory was family. And you …” Ivan Denisovich shook his hand.
“Stop it, Papa. What did he ever do to you?” whined Sveta.
She was not his Svetka anymore. His Svetka who used to jump and laugh until her braids were undone. She had lost her sense of humor, as if being dull meant being smart.
“To Grisha’s soul, may he rest in peace.” Sofia Arkadievna lifted her glass filled with vodka to the brim.
Ivan Denisovich thought it strange that his wife, who didn’t like vodka and rarely drank at all, was about to chug a full glass of the clear demon.
“A good man is gone.” She put down the empty glass and inhaled on a slice of brown rye. “Let’s go see Valentina. I don’t treat her right. I should give her something.”
Ivan Denisovich realized that his wife was already drunk, and acting out of character. He gazed around the room as if he had accidentally entered the wrong apartment. He searched for something familiar, something to hold onto, and was happy to see the little yellow-and-brown throw that Sofia Arkadievna had crocheted when Svetka was born. Russian newspapers and magazines were scattered on the glass coffee table, covered with fingerprints. The blue-and-white flowery china—one of the few things they brought with them when they emigrated—held the proverbial fried cod, mashed potatoes, and beet salad. Stolichnaya vodka in Czech crystal glasses with golden trim completed the setting. The curtains were drawn, shutting out the world, and on the TV screen an old black-and-white film with Katyusha missiles blasting against the night sky annihilated Nazi troops in the field. Ivan Denisovich almost believed he was back in Russia, and for a moment felt warm inside, as if the shot of vodka had spread slowly through his veins into the most remote areas of his body, pushing out the pain. He suddenly loved everyone, even his son-in-law with his idiotic spiky hair.
“Milaya.” He hadn’t called Sofia Arkadievna “my beloved” for many years. He reached for her face and noticed she was crying. “Milaya, don’t cry. It will be all right.”
“How would you know, you old goat?” She sounded just like Grigory.
“Mama?” Sveta stared at her weeping mother from across the table. “Ma, what’s wrong?”
“Ma, ma!” Sofia Arkadievna mocked her daughter. “That’s what,” and she grabbed the platter and threw it across the room. It hit the wall just below the family picture gallery, and the fish mixed with broken china slid down the wall and landed on the polished top of the bookcase.
Sveta jumped from the table, covering her mouth with both hands, as if afraid to release any sound. The men didn’t move.
On the screen, a hazy-eyed war heroine sang “Moscow Nights” to a room full of somber officers.
“I’m sorry,” cried Sofia Arkadievna, and plunked her head over her arms on the table. “I�
�m so sorry, Vanya. For everything.”
Sveta made a sign to her husband to help her clean up the mess. He wanted to finish his food, but she handed him a rag and a bucket to take care of the fish on the bookcase.
Ivan Denisovich remained still. Everything in his past had to be suddenly rearranged, like a Rubik’s cube when you moved one square and the whole thing collapsed and you had to start over. Only he had no time left to put it all together again. He stood up, unexpectedly sorry for himself, picked up his keys, and walked out the door.
He reached the corner. The night was cool, but jasmine filled the air. The leaning palms looked like bottle brushes against the dark red glow of the evening sky. A young couple across the street laughed, drinking out of a brown bag and smoking. Ivan Denisovich approached them and demonstrated that he wanted a cigarette. They smiled, handed him a Marlboro, and offered to light it. He nodded in gratitude and limped away, his legs rubbery from the first puff.
Cars zoomed by, up and down Fountain Avenue. An older woman with a grocery bag struggled with her keys. A black teenager coasted on his bike, hands off the bar, just like Grigory used to, back in Moscow. A Latina beauty pulled her screaming son out of a beat-up Toyota; then a paraplegic rolled past him in a motorized wheelchair and disappeared inside an apartment building.
Ivan Denisovich shivered and regretted having forgotten his jacket. He glanced at the window on the third floor that framed the orange-tinted light from his apartment. The balcony was filled with old suitcases, geraniums in clay pots, and laundry hanging from the line. Two plastic chairs, his and Sofia Arkadievna’s, stood in the middle, facing the street. They often sat there in the evenings, drinking cold tea and watching neighbors down below. He noticed that the chair cushions were still there. How many times did he have to tell her not to leave them out overnight?
He threw his cigarette on the ground, crushed it against the asphalt with his slipper, and shuffled back home.
ROGER CRUMBLER CONSIDERED HIS SHAVE
BY GARY PHILLIPS
Mid-City
Roger Crumbler considered his shave. On this his fiftieth birthday, he was pleased that while his stubble became grayer each week, he still had a head of hair—and it was still dark.
The face in his bathroom mirror had held up fairly decently for half a century. Though not for the first time he considered minor cosmetic surgery to correct the bags under his eyes, a trait among the men in his family. Was it true that Preparation H reduced the puffiness? There was a kind of logic to that since hemorrhoids were what … ? An enlarged vein, right? But what caused those sacks under the eyes? Fluid? He’d have to Google that. It was always good to have something new to learn.
Working the shaving gel into his whiskers, Roger smiled, mentally outlining the day ahead. At the office he had to complete a final review of the Carlson Foundation financials. There had been no major blips on the radar save for some inconsistencies on a pass-through grant from a city agency. The Carlson Foundation funded reading programs for low-income youth, and the city of Los Angeles was a partner in that endeavor. Such inconsistencies were not unusual given the accounting procedures of the bureaucrats versus the private sector. This was a minor concern, and he would resolve it with a phone call or two to his City Hall contacts.
Yet it was because of those inconsistencies that he was able to do what he’d done. For him. For Nanette.
Roger turned his head this way and the other, making sure he’d covered his face evenly as he massaged the warm foam into his pores. At one of those precious west side fundraising dinner parties saving spotted owls (or maybe it was spotted actors), a dermatologist with skin flawless as plastic told him that you should allow five minutes for your night beard to soak properly. He didn’t adhere to this advice each morning, but he wasn’t going to be fifty every morning either. This was, after all, a big day.
After reconciling the financials, there would be the regular weekly staff meeting. He’d already written and copied his report earlier this week, so there should be no surprises there either. The company, Nathanson and Nathanson, was a boutique CPA firm that nonetheless commanded more than eight million in billing last year, with a clientele that ranged from old-line family foundations like Carlson to heavy hitters in the film and music business. Roger was senior vice-president and was up for partnership.
That in itself was something, considering the firm had been started in the ’40s, when there were still a smattering of orange groves along Wilshire. Run and grown by the founder, Sig Nathanson, then turned over to one of the sons, Gabe, and nephew Martin, in the ’70s. The only other partner outside of the family had been a member of the founder’s temple, and Roger was not a member. Unlike the late Sammy Davis, Jr., he’d only joked over drinks about converting. And what about Whoopi Goldberg? She wasn’t really a member of the tribe, was she? Something else to Google.
He dutifully stroked his double blade through the foam. The reassuring sound of whiskers being loped off were the low notes accompanying the chirping of birds in the tree outside his second-story bathroom window. Post the staff meeting he’d have a light lunch at his desk. He wasn’t actually much for diets, but when he’d had the irregular heartbeat detected at age forty-five, he finally quit smoking and resolved to loose the fat.
Roger guided his razor underneath his jaw. Initially he’d hated running. He’d tried the treadmill at the gym his wife belonged to, but found that boring. Yet jogging through his neighborhood—Wilshire Vista, the upscalers called it—he had sights and sounds, and this kept him occupied. In the five years of this regime, including regular sessions with weight machines, he’d lost forty pounds. He ran a palm over his handiwork. For a man his age, his wife and girlfriend both told him amorously, he looked reasonably fit and even a little buffed.
He worked the razor on his upper lip, recalling fondly the moustache he’d also shed five, no, more like four years ago. That’s when he’d met Nanette. Finished, he toweled off the excess of lather and dabbed on aftershave, then stepped back into the bedroom.
His wife, Claudia, was up and moving about. He watched with lascivious interest as she bent over to search in her underwear drawer. Usually she wore sweats or pajama pants and a top, but this morning, this birthday, she wore only lacy purple panties.
Roger sat on the bed, picturing himself as David Niven in Raffles. “Have I mentioned how spectacular your ass is, honey?”
“You always know what to say to a woman.” She pushed him back and straddled him, nuzzling and biting his neck.
“Glad you woke me up this morning,” he said, pulling her down and kissing her full on the mouth. He was going to miss her. Yes, he certainly was.
“You didn’t do too bad for an old dog.”
“Careful, I might have to show you my double play.”
She smiled, biting her lower lip. This always got to him, even after decades of seeing it. “I’d like to, baby, but I have to hit that inventory this a.m. You know how that tight-ass Pelecanos gets.” Claudia managed a heavy-equipment rental service.
“Forget your clown boss. He couldn’t find balls in a bowling alley if it wasn’t for you.” He slipped his hand inside her panty and caressed that wondrous backside. His wife reluctantly broke free.
“Tonight we’ll have all kinds of time,” she said.
“Well, I don’t know. At my age, Lord knows, I need my rest.”
She shook a glossy purple nail at him. “You just be ready and don’t drink too much.”
He chuckled. “I won’t.” Damn, she looked good.
The phone rang. He reached for it but Claudia moved quicker and plucked the handset loose.
“Hello?” Then, “Oh, hi, sweetie.” She listened some more, glancing once or twice at her husband, frowning.
Roger languidly reposed on the bed, but a spring was winding in the base of his spine. That had to be their daughter on the phone. She attended Cal Berkeley up north. Was there some emergency? If so, what would that do to his schedule? But he ha
d to be cool. Can’t let ’em see you sweat, he reminded himself.
“All right, honey. We’ll see you tonight.”
“Why’s she coming home?” he asked as his wife hung up. “There some problem?”
“Not really …” Claudia began.
“Not really?” he said more shrilly than he wanted. “This is the middle of the school year, Claudia.” Now what did he just tell himself? Keep it on low burn, man. Low burn. He rose, clasping his wife’s shoulders. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all tense. You know how us pensioners get mood swings.”
Claudia Crumbler-Morris looked preoccupied, fooling with a towel. “Janice’s coming home because she doesn’t have class until Monday, and wants to talk to us about something.”
Roger wondered aloud, “Dropping out?”
“Or pregnant.”
“Aw, hell no.” He began to stomp around the room. “We’re too damn young to be grandparents.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Jesus.”
Claudia chuckled. “I don’t think she’s pregnant.”
“She’s twenty and we’ve both seen how them knotheads with their pants hanging down around their cracks drool at her.”
Claudia was heading toward the shower. “She’s not attracted to those kind of boys.”
“Even boys with slide rules like a little—”
“Roger,” she admonished.
“Taste,” he declared.
“Heathen.” She closed the bathroom door and ran her shower. He knew she wasn’t that sure Janice wasn’t pregnant, and neither was he.
And if she was with child, then what of his plans involving Nanette? It wasn’t like he could pull this off any time he felt like doing it. He finished dressing. It would be casual today, the pressed chinos, button-down shirt, sports jacket, no tie. It was his birthday and it was expected he’d be coasting once the Carlson file was closed out.
Putting his socks on, the ones with the blue hourglasses, he reveled in the simplicity and beauty of the virus he’d planted in his firm’s computers more than two years ago. At 9:24 tonight, his new life would begin.
Los Angeles Noir Page 22
