by James Newman
I looked away and let the vision fade. “This man with the cane. Have you seen him since? Had you seen him before?”
The Siamese twin thought about it and shook his head. “Nah, but I’ve been keeping my peepers open for that mother, I can tell you.”
High Tower put his Coca-Cola down on the table and spoke for the first time. “I have. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him going into the Neptune in Leather Bar. Sunday afternoon. Jazz. They don’t let us in there. Bar lady says we scare away the customers. Skipped a couple of bills back when I was drinking. Anyway. I have no business going where I frighten the customers. Plenty of places like my money just fine.”
“Thanks for joining the conversation, big guy. Any of you recognize this kid?” I flashed the picture of Kurt.
“Sure,” they said in unison.
“That’s the French kid who was into performance art. He dug our live act. We saw him again at the Theater Bizarre.”
“The Theater Bizarre?”
“Sure, there’s a Situationist Comic Tragedy on this week. The Rat Trap. It’s something to see. Give our regards to the kid, such a sweet boy.” Cake Hole smiled.
“The kid jumped off a balcony.”
Cake Hole’s mouth widened. “That is tragic. He wanted so much to return to the stage. Full of life and passion for theater. What a swell kid.”
“Yep,” High Tower confirmed.
“Okay, are you a cop or a spook or something? I smell heat,” Cake Hole said.
“Private Investigator, Joe Dylan. I’m on your side. Let me know if anything strange, unusual, or normal happens. Any thoughts you have regarding the kid. When did you last see him?”
“Last week, he was sitting on the sidewalk on Happy Street staring at the gutter.”
“I thought he was staring at the stars.”
“Well, that one was special, creative kid, he switched between the sewers and the milky-way in a heartbeat, you dig?”
“Bipolar? Some creative types suffer from mental illness, strains of autism.”
The conjoined twin thought about it for a while, before saying, “Well, he sure had friends at the Theater Bizarre. Kind of sad what he was running from.”
“Running from?”
“The French stalker.”
“Right,” I said waiting for some form of elaboration, “must have been tough.”
“You know what they call it?” Cake Hole said.
“No.”
“Erotomania.”
“What?”
“De Clerambault’s syndrome. The delusion that somebody, often a celebrity, is in love with you.” I said, “I read something about this is in Metropolitan. What was the woman’s name?”
“He called her La Chienne.”
“The bitch,” I said.
“He was sewn up tight with the group, even performed a couple of times. Then every time we saw him, he was with her, and then both he and she disappeared from the scene.”
“Right. Was she pretty?”
“Yeah, she had potential. Kind of scraggly looking though. She certainly wasn’t going for the feminine look.”
“Got it. Thanks for your time. The streets wait.”
Back at the bar, a hunchback stood behind the counter taking an order from a paraplegic social critic with polished chrome bumpers and Go Faster stripes plastered onto his wheelchair. A pair of twins joint at the hip leaned with their backs against the bar sharing a mentholated cigarette, blowing smoke rings up to the rotary ceiling fan and talking about the latest found footage feature Freak Museum set inside the forensic museum. Dead Siamese twins pickled in jars, preserved serial killers, coiled centipedes, scorpions, curious specimens gathered from the jungles of the south and the dusty lands to the north. A man sat in the corner stroking an unleashed polecat; now and again, the animal ran up his pants leg and appeared through the zip of his fly, its head cocking from side to side. A female body-builder-cum-wrestler sits in an opposite booth next to an impossibly thin rubber man reading a copy of The Wild Boys. White (presumably domestic, although possibly just albino) rats ran freely around the floor slipping between and around customer’s sandals. In the far corner, a man with a pencil mustache, late stage Parkinson’s, reads a shuddering copy of Swann’s Way. Tequila. Oh, tequila. Ordered a row of three tequila, invited a woman, no visible physical defects, spare a cute facial mole, to sit down. Toying with an Ace double edition of The Narcotic Agent, she glances over before turning over each page. After a few pages and drinks, I have to ask, “What’s wrong with you?” She hitches up her skirt by way of explanation.
“Listen,” she says, “do you know the difference between guilt and shame?”
“Enlighten me,” I said.
“Take me,” she said, “as an example. Grew up from an early age knowing that I was a woman, but I had a problem with that, something in the way, you might say.”
“Yeah, I saw that.”
“Well, Mummy and Daddy didn’t like me getting ideas. Didn’t want me getting above myself. I was just another brick in the wall,” she laughed. “You see, people have a habit of having your whole life planned out for you before you ever have a chance to start living it. Dreams are slashed and nightmares encouraged. I wanted to be a singer. Broadway, vaudeville, wherever. I asked the world about it. The World said ‘NO.’ Then I wanted to be a dancer. I asked The World about it. The World said, ‘NO.’ The world has a real knack for saying, ‘NO.’ And you know what the thing is, blue eyes?”
“No.”
“None of the time that no is said ever meant YES. So you gotta work at it. You come to places like this where you can be who you want to be. You build a rep. You turn that NO into a YES...But what was I talking about?”
“Guilt and shame?”
“Right. Well, shame is who you are and guilt is what you do. Say I grew up thinking I wanted to be a woman and everyone in The World told me I was just a scrawny little man. This is true, I was. It made me feel so bad, as if I hated myself. I could cheat and steal shit and act like an asshole because I’d already been awarded the accolade of being a worthless scumbag. I had a free pass, baby, and boy did I use it.”
“Where does guilt come in?”
“I’m coming to that, big shot, I’m coming. When you tell somebody that they’re worthless, they usually meet your expectations. Well, as soon as you realize that it’s just some worthless asshole telling you that, and some never make it that far, you begin to shed that shame. You realize that you are actually who you are, and you’re just doing bad shit because the motherfuckers want to keep you down and doing bad shit keeps you down. Then you realize that you don’t have to do bad shit because doing bad shit is what got you where you are at. It is playing right into those crabass motherfucker’s claws. Some people are shits, baby, and don’t you forget it.”
“I follow.”
“Well, I’m looking into your big blue eyes and I’m seeing pain, and I’m seeing shame, sailor. When you wake up, do you feel bad about what YOU done or WHO you are?”
“Who I am.”
“Well, that’s shame right there, brother. That’s shame fucking with you, and you need to substitute that shame shit for guilt. First thing you can do is lose that girl Trixie. She’s trouble, brother, and that’s coming from a brother from another mother. Heard she put her husband in the Punch for money, and don’t be thinking the same fate won’t be falling for YOU.”
I stood and walked out of there.
You want to get advice?
Well, if you want to get advice and get it good, go speak to the downtrodden in a Fun City freak bar.
NINETEEN
READ AND we shall learn.
A splash of painters hung out close to the river in the Central Business District where they discussed tones and textures, while dipping pain au chocolat into iced cappuccinos. Challenging New Pieces were painfully conceived in cheap hotel rooms and put to life in studios, converted rice storage warehouses by the river, German coffee shops, Squee
ze Easies and after hour jazz clubs. Novelists and poets called the Red Zone home. They sat in bars and coffee houses siphoning art straight from the source. Direct from the streets, bottling it up like crazed scientists, their Magnus Opus completed, they supplemented their literary empires by way of selling pseudo-psychological articles to newspapermen who harbored literary aspirations and recycled words like High and Concept. Drunken directors with grand budgets and treatments that shook like defecating alley dogs in a windy alley shot film. Photographers shot crowd scenes, civil unrest, demonstrations, and the general disorder ever present in a town with all the organization of a kicked over termite hill. The shooting of films and soaps, and also bizarre game shows exported overseas took place close to the CBD. There were huge superstar agencies where wannabe models and actors signed up to easy street, money and glamour in exchange for the right cheekbones, family connections and skin texture. Normally, these individuals ended up promoting pharmaceuticals at the foot of shopping malls or rattling tins for bogus charities at elevated train exits. The luckier ones entered high-class escort agencies, or joined teenage pop groups.
Brett worked out of an office near the CBD and ran a talent nurturing enterprise for the aforementioned wannabes.
Seek and you shall find.
Found that the sun had swallowed the night before dipping back behind the skyscrapers and calling the next act the moon. Evening had broken dividing the Red Zone and the CBD through that long over-ground tunnel with S&M joints, freak bars, lady-boy joints, s-bot hubs, techno clubs, hair salons, internet cafes, and rat infested restaurants lining either side of the tunnel. A small clutch of Progeria children huddled together shielding their prematurely aged skin from the Fun City sun, a honey badger scuttled along with kebab remains between its jaws. The tunnel, the scent of grounded chili, stale fish and a giant land crab that the locals dug out of the ground and then left until rancid before pounding it into a paste used to enrich pungent salads and perhaps souls. This smell took you by the throat, yes it did, and challenged you, like an obnoxious phantom coaxing you to penetrate the depths of that godforsaken tunnel.
I walked past the casualties of the tunnel and out into the CBD, past a gang of officers who stood around formally and decisively distributing their authority to any suspicious passersby.
Arrived at a tall office building that rose up thirty floors where the cigar ash clouds obscured pastel blue sky. Reception housed a middle-aged woman, immaculate grey hair bearing one gold tooth smiling painfully on my approach. Exchanged with her a business card for a building pass, took the elevator up fourteen floors, and walked out through a set of automatic glass doors into the offices of TUC productions. The receptionist was just out of university and radiantly emancipated. In Fun City, the women became more beautiful the higher up you rose. Flashed the building pass, mentioned a name, and a smile like a Pearl White ad granted me access to above.
“Yes, Mr. Brett is free now. Let me make a call.”
She did that and after doing so, waved me through giving vague directions to Brett’s office. A youth of about twenty with flawless skin and a wide nervous smile brushed past. He wore a singlet vest over a muscular body. Obviously, no stranger to the gym, the youth radiated the kind of confidence talent agents humbly nurtured. His ass swished and swayed past reception and towards the elevators.
Brett, middle-aged, American, white hair, and a pinkish complexion, sat behind a large hardwood desk, clear, spare a flat computer screen, keyboard, mouse, and a mug of coffee. He smiled as I walked into his office and sat in the opposite chair. He joined his hands above the desk like a church steeple and I couldn’t help but silently compliment his manicurist’s handiwork.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the wandering gay blade himself, Mr. Dylan. You are looking well, and,” he looked over my suit, “I love the outfit. It is so you, darling.”
“Thanks,” knowing that he hated the suit and knowing that he didn’t rise to the fourteenth floor by saying what he thought, added, “You are looking rather well yourself.”
“One has to make an effort now and again. Did you see Lilly in reception? That outfit? I mean, what was she thinking?”
“She looked fine to me.”
“Well, I’m sure they all do to you, you old scamp. And I’m not looking well. Don’t try to tease me. You’re the detective. Looking well? Nonsense, even the local Gamers don’t give me a second glance now, darling. I’m past my prime and let’s make no mistake about it. But if one is to be past his prime then this is the town to be past his prime in. I’ve just been auditioning a singer. Isn’t it terrible when they get nervous and their throat goes all dry and at the worst possible time? Well, we all know what it’s like to have once been a budding protégé,” Brett pursed his thin lips as he took a sip from a mug of cappuccino. “How can I be of assistance?”
“I was wondering about filming in the zone?”
“A new career,” Brett’s eyebrows raised. “And why not?”
“Retroactive footage is what I need.”
“Oh, you aren’t making one of those ghastly found footage monstrosities.”
“Not yet, Brett. I have a case, quite serious. Child’s been abducted. English family.” It was a bad lie, one that could be checked up on, but I figured that I could always say that the family had been told by the kidnappers to keep quiet until the exchange. This was the norm with kidnap and ransom cases. Nobody was being hurt by the odd untruth. And Brett worked in a business founded on lies.
“Ghastly business.”
“Yes, and I figure if I can have access to any shooting done in the twilight evening back in February this year, I can follow a trail to the monster who is doing this.”
“Can’t say I follow, if the child was just recently abducted...”
“Yes, but she wasn’t the first. She is however the first Westerner. I am telling you all this off the record.”
“I see. But we don’t usually shoot there.”
“I’m aware of that; however, I am also aware that as a production company, you have access to overseas footage, the owners of that need you to front their productions here. Scouting honor and all of that?”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“Particularly, the Chinese game show.”
Brett made a face. “What a ghastly charade. Thank goodness they’ve left and taken their filthy little pantomime with them.”
“You still have some of the footage?”
“If it were up to me, it would have been sent down the garbage shoot with...”
“You can find it?”
“If I have a little one to one with the location scout, will that help ease your mind?”
“Can you do that?”
“Give me some time, Joe. I want to help you. Maybe if I explained that it was a delicate situation and...”
“Tell them that there is a law suit taken out by the family of the Chinese guy who had the glass shoved up his ass, and you need to review the footage to protect the company from hovering litigation. Then lay the child kidnap angle on them as an afterthought. If they don’t want to play ball, I’ll telephone with a lawyer routine.”
“Nice angles.”
“Not if you’re on the receiving end.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do, but I have classes all day, vocal practice, sound checks. Tomorrow?”
“Twenty-four hours,” I handed him a card. “I’ll make it worth your while,” stood and shook the elder man’s hands, catching a glint in his eye as I did so.
“In that case, I’ll have it to you by this evening, say eight PM my place?”
“The numbers on the card, big boy,” I added. “Call me when you have the file. Tomorrow’s fine.”
TWENTY
SHOP ENTRANCE.
The Street of Dead Artists.
A row of cocktail lounges and bars specialized in fetishes, secrets, dreams, and sacred vices. The proprietor of the only art store in the Street of Dead Artists was still known as Ajarn. He ha
d left the monkhood and now owned the only art and supply store on the street where he dealt in old and ancient curiosities.
Dust smeared windows and photographs on a wire rack outside the glass front door. Looking closer, postcard prints, black and whites, urban men and women, naked bodies posed in hotel rooms. Emotionless, like Hopper creations, women sat on beds, knees drawn close to their chest; a man smoked a cigarette while considering the traffic through the steam-smeared hotel window. A girl and a dog played by the beach while a man in a raincoat looked out far to sea.
Seagulls wheeled in the sky years ago.
A bell on the door, I rang and entered. Larger black and whites hung on the bright, white walls. City scenes, skyscrapers; an office worker spoke on a rotary telephone while a young woman in a short skirt and long boots passed him by with a curious expression. A line of fishing boats by the harbor, boats painted green, reds, and blues. A large hardwood table, middle of the shop, books on the table. Hardbacks, coffee table books, photograph books, travel guides. An Asian man with snow-white hair and smooth skin appeared from below a counter and rose with a smile as cold and remote as the pictures he peddled, before noticing me, the icy gaze broke to be replaced with a friendlier one as I approached. “Joe Dylan, is that you? Can I help?”
“Ajarn, I hardly recognized you without your habit.”
