Blood is Pretty

by Steven Paul Leiva

  She came on the line. “Is this really the infamous Fixxer?”

  “I am known as Fixxer, whether infamous or not. ”

  “Well, I’ve heard some really interesting stories about you. ”

  “Someday you must recount them to me. ”

  “Oh, they’re probably all wrong. I would rather hear the real stories from you. ”

  “I’ll let you know when the book signing is. ”

  “What? Can’t I have a private performance?”

  “I’m open to discussing it, but not right now. I need to do you a favor. ”

  “Do me a favor? Under what terms?”

  “What I require from you in return is very simple and will take but a minute. ”

  “And what do I get favored with?”

  “The opportunity to wreak vengeance on Andy Rand. ”

  There was silence. This had been a titillating game for her, but now I had stirred a dark desire she probably thought she had successfully hidden from all, not the least being here own self. And she obviously knew enough of my reputation not to take what I had just said lightly.

  “Why—why would I want vengeance against Andy?”

  “The film you did for NewVue, For Richer, For Poorer—you know you weren’t the director’s first choice. ”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. Andy fought for me, in fact. For that I should want to—do him harm?”

  “But you also know why he fought for you. The director later confessed to you, didn’t he? Rand, and his production president, Tom Parr, in finally explaining why they were insisting on you, told the director, quite frankly, that it was because they wanted to prove to Hollywood that, quote, ‘We can control the bitch’. ”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Why am I infamous? From day one on that shoot those two men harassed you, made your life miserable. I don’t need to laundry list the details for you, but I personally found the most amusing incident being when you woke up one morning to find a lawsuit on your doorstep seeking damages for a lost day of shooting, supposedly because you had walked off the set the day before. ”

  “I did not. ”

  “Yes, I know. The director, for his own reasons, had changed the shooting schedule, releasing you. Nonetheless, the document was on your doorstep, it was more than upsetting and, coming on top of all the other harassment, you lost it. You became extremely difficult to deal with. ”

  “Okay, it was not a pleasant experience. I was angry for a long time afterward. ”

  “The bad rap you got from it as an even worse bitch than people thought almost ruined your career. Especially when the film flopped. ”

  “That’s all gone. That’s all past. I guess, in fact, I owe Andy a debt. Maybe

  I learned how to be more—professional. ”

  “Oh, come on! He pulled a stupid, macho, little boy’s game on you. He didn’t do it for your edification. He did it to play with you, like he probably played with his pets when he was a kid—much to the disadvantage of their physical wellbeing. It was a mean-grin form of torture. He wanted to make you suffer. You should feel no shame in wanting to make him suffer in return. ”

  Silence again. Then: “What can I do for you?”

  “Introduce someone to Rand. ”

  “That’s all?”

  “At the EarthPeople Ball. You will be there. You are on the committee. ”

  “Yes I’ll be there. Who?”

  “Anne Eisley. ”

  “Oh. She’s beautiful. Well if this is going to make Andy suffer, I would like to see what you would suggest I do for friends. ”

  “The purpose of all this will become clear in time. When it does, you will be proud of what little part you played. ”

  “So I get to wreak vengeance and be proud of it?”

  “That’s right. ”

  “I know a lot of Hollywood ladies looking for a Guru like you. ”

  “Anne will be at the ball with her brother. They will be at your table. ”

  “But—. ”

  “Two of your guests will reluctantly have to cancel. Introduce yourself.

  Then find the perfect moment to introduce Anne to Rand. The more magical the moment, the better. ”

  “Okay. I’ll do it. But, really because I can’t see the harm in it. ”

  “I will make my appreciation apparent at some future date. ”

  I hung up the phone, smiled and brought up an image of Sara Hemmings, especially as she appeared in Twilight Time. I must admit I entertained the slightly evil hope that at some time in the future she would be in need of my services.

  *

  After breakfast I went to the lab to get a report from Petey. I found him perfectly paralyzed, sitting in a chair, wearing the Veritas glasses. A program was running. There was a grin to make a mama scream plastered across his face. I pulled the glasses off.

  “Oh—oh—oh,” Petey said as he lunged for the glasses.

  “Found the bearskin rug program, I see. ”

  “I want a copy! Keep the salary, give me a copy!”

  “I’ll think about it. So, who did she become?”

  “Sally Glasscock. She was cheerleader at my high school. Would never look at me twice. Twice? Hell, I could have stood in front of her buck naked, my hair on fire, surrounded by the contents of Fort Knox and she wouldn’t have seen me!”

  “You are kidding?”

  “No, I was that much of a non-entity!”

  “No, I mean her name. ”

  “Oh, no, that’s absolutely true. Want to see my high school annual?”

  “Maybe just before I die to dispel any deathbed regrets. Now what can you tell me about Veritas?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How it works. ”

  “At this point I can only give you a guess. ”

  “But an educated one?”

  “Oh, the best!”

  “And then I’ll need competent mumbo jumbo I can use to convince Rand and York that I may have the key to perfection. ”

  “That won’t be easy”

  “Nevertheless… ” I did not need to say more.

  “Well, okay, my guess of how it works is based on a current theory of how the brain works. ”

  “Which is?”

  “That the brain is like comedy—it’s all in the timing. In a nutshell, this is it: You sit here watching me as I talk. Your eye takes in light that has bounced off me and nerve cells break that down into fragmented, electrical information about shape, color, contrast, motion, essentially: what I look like. Your ear takes in the sound waves created by my talking and does the same thing. The nerves on your skin registers the temperature in the room, maybe the slight movement of air from the air conditioning fan, and breaks that down into fragments of info. Your nostrils take in molecules from the air that have flowed off my face and that came, originally, out of a bottle of Old Spice, and fragments the hell out of that. Nerve cells called neurons transmit all these fragments into the brain, specifically into an area in the center called the thalamus. The thalamus acts like a clearinghouse, and has these relay stations, one for each sense. The relay stations send the fragmented information up to corresponding and dedicated areas of the cerebral cortex, which is the layer of cells that covers the outer surface of the brain. You know, the funny, gray convoluted part. Now this is all well and good, but if this is all that the brain did, our perception of the world would be like viewing it as a reflection in a shattered and scattered mirror, which would be pretty damn confusing. But here’s where the brain becomes really marvelous. Inside the thalamus is this tire shaped group of cells called the intralaminar nucleus. Every 12. 5 thousandths of a second this thing sends out a scanning wave of nerve impulses that sweeps across every bit of the cerebral cortex. Think of it like a radar wave sweeping across the top of the brain, passing each individual area of the cortex that corresponds to the senses. Now, the frequency of this wave is 40 cycles per second. Which is the same frequency the active sensory
cells in the cortex are regulated to by the thalamus. So all this fragmented information is being relayed to, and activating sensory cells in the cerebral cortex in a rhythm of electrical activity of 40 cycles a second, just as the intralaminar nucleus sends a scanning wave across the cerebral cortex at the same 40 cycles. There is a meeting of minds, so to speak, and a coherent wave of messages are sent back to the thalamus, which now perceives all this fragmented information bound together as a whole. Of course, that whole is itself but a 12. 5 thousandth of a second fragment of time. But that is so fast these 12. 5 fragments of time meld into a continuous, connected flow. ”

  “So it’s like film. A camera documents then breaks up a moving image into 24 frames or fragments per second onto film; the film is ran through a projector at the same 24 frames per second and ‘binds’ those static fragments into one moving image on the screen. ”

  “In a sense, yes, but, of course, you are only talking about the sense of sight there. ”

  “Of course. Now, how does Veritas take advantage of this?”

  “Well, here’s an interesting fact. When you are in a deep, non-dreaming sleep, the thalamic cells are operating at only 2 cycles per second. When you are awake, but not paying attention to anything in particular, they are operating at 10 cycles. When you are fully awake, then it’s, as I said, 40 cycles. ”

  “And when you are dreaming?”

  “The same 40 cycles. ”

  “Interesting. ”

  “You’ve got to think of the brain as just an organ whose function is to create perceptions. During wakefulness, those perceptions are controlled by information gathered by the senses and split into fragmented bits, which become the building material of the perceptions the brain creates. At night the perceptions the brain creates are dreams. What are the building blocks? Probably just the leftover information in the cells, causing the erratic, shall we say, anarchic weirdness of dreams. I mean, you could say that our life while awake is a dream living under a dictatorship. The dictatorship of the five senses. ”

  “And Veritas operates on the same 40 cycles a second. ”

  “That’s right. My guess is it simulates the dream state by, one, stimulating neural inhibitors, thus paralyzing the body and numbing, in a sense, all the senses. And two, sending at 40 cycles, sensory information directly to the relay stations in the thalamus to replace the sensory information not being received by the numbed senses. ”

  “Thus creating a dream living under a dictator. ”

  “The dictator of the program in the computer converted into a 40 cycle signal sent by this black box via infrared beam to the right lens of the glasses, down the right bow to the little contact points, which directs the signal to the thalamus. The contact points on the left bow monitor the electrical signals of brain activity and sends them to the left lens, which is an infrared transmitter which beams the information back to the black box, thereby creating an interactive loop, allowing the program to know what decisions you are making, such as going into the right tunnel or the left tunnel, whether to panic or stay calm, whether to use the missionary position—or not. ”

  “Yes, a heady decision. ”

  “But, of course, Veritas is better than a dream. You know how we’re always asking, ‘Do you dream in color?’ Well, do you taste in a dream? Feel cold? Smell shit? You can’t really remember can you? Veritas gives you all that. If truth is nothing but our perceptions, and Veritas can dictate our perceptions, then Veritas is truth. ”

  “And it’s even more, isn’t it? He’s managed to add cognitive information to sense information. ”

  “Yes, that’s right. ”

  “How? How has he been able to encode this information into the computer program?”

  “I’m not sure. He was some kind of a genius. But his ambition is what was causing him problems. ”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Recreating information from all five senses, plus cognitive information. Overload. That’s why pieces are missing. ”

  “And this is where I need the mumbo jumbo. ”

  “Well, if we really don’t understand how—. ”

  “Mumbo jumbo, Petey,” I insisted.

  Petey looked up at me, a worried furrow in his brow, not something you usually see there. But then, in the past few minutes, as Petey had been talking, as he was in his element, the element of ideas, his whole countenance had changed. He became attractive. Not, of course, physically attractive in any conventional manner, but attractive, nonetheless, because he was being his essential self. Gone was the prankster, the loud little guy with self-deprecation as his self-defense. Here was a brilliant man who knew his stuff. And reveled in it. On occasion, Homo sapiens are to be admired.

  “Well,” Petey said, “Baker at UCLA has been doing some pure research that might relate. But it would really be going out on a limb. ”

  “Explain it to me. ”

  *

  Later that afternoon, after Petey had filled my head with complexities on the quantum level, I was surprised to find that Roee had brought Anne home after their shopping. She was very excited.

  “We found a fabulous outfit! Fabulous! Were can I try it on?”

  “That’s not necessary. You didn’t have to come back. Surprise me on Wednesday. ”

  “Fixxer, you’re thinking of a wedding dress. This is a ball gown. That you’re paying for. I want you to approve of it. ”

  “I have complete trust in both you and Roee. ”

  “Thank you,” Roee said. “But I agree with Anne. You better take a look at this. ”

  “Where can I try it on? Your bedroom?”

  “No, I think the library will do. ”

  She gave me a smile and nod, accepting this little defeat. “Okay. I’ll be right back. ” She grabbed the boxes she and Roee had come in with and went quickly into the library.

  I turned to Roee. “Had a good time, did we?”

  “We stalked our quarry and bagged it. Ran it to ground in the fourth

  Beverly Hills store we visited. Had a very nice lunch at Via Rodeo. You know, that fake little European street where Cartier and Tiffany’s moved to. ”

  “Yes, I’m aware of the location. ”

  “Speaking of Tiffany’s… ”

  “Yes?”

  “I figured she needed a little something for around the neck. ”

  “Yes?”

  “So I picked up a little Peretti piece. ”

  “A little Peretti piece?”

  “Very nice. Gold link chain broken up every now and then by diamonds. ”

  “Just every now and then?”

  “Not often. ”

  “I see. Beautiful?”

  “Exquisite. ”

  “And… . ?”

  “And we can get at least seven times its cost in Moscow later if we want to. ”

  “It’s nice to see you haven’t completely abandoned commerce for aesthetics. ”

  “I have an ex-apparatchik friend whose wife has got an eye for—. ”

  “What do you think?”

  We turned. Anne stood in the doorway.

  “Of course, my hair isn’t done and I have on daytime makeup, but… ”

  It was indeed a fabulous outfit. But it was not what I was expecting. It was two pieces: A teal satin double-breasted jacket and a matching long slit skirt. She had on the Peretti necklace, which provided a delicate accent to the trip your eyes could not help but travel from her long, carved marble neck, down the plunge defined by the two lapels of the jacket, to the separation between her breasts, that always exciting bit of space where every man believes the purest of air exists. She stood with her left leg thrust forward, taking full advantage of the slit, and her leg, cut from the same marble as her neck, sung that mysterious song, the song of the Sirens, enchantment leading to sweet destruction. She looked down assessing herself, and then raised her head. The teal of the jacket got caught in her aquamarine eyes and made them glow.

  “It’s lovely,” I said
. “But—. ”

  “But you were expecting… ?”

  “Something more… ”

  “Something more Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief?”

  “Possibly. ” Only self-control kept away the embarrassment of having my mind read so clearly.

  “I understand. But consider this: Feminine shape and cleavage, combined with masculine tailoring, combined with a feminine color, excites the nerve ends of most males. It keeps them guessing. Is this mine for the taking? Or must I ask respectfully? Dare I? Could I? Should I? Might I? The answer must be obtained. The bold will grab for it. This outfit is seriously sexy. ”

  I considered this. It was an interesting theory.

  “Coming from an—believe me—objective position,” Roee stated, “What she says makes sense. ”

  “Holy shit!”

  It was Petey, just in from the lab. “You should have warned me you were going to be running around here dressed like that! I would have put on my rubberized undies!”

  Anne laughed. She is very charitable.

  “Well,” I said, “who am I to argue with the majority?”

  “Good,” Anne said, closing this matter. “Now are there any other preparations to make before Wednesday night?”

  “Well, yes, I would like you to come by tomorrow to brief me on your childhood, parents, community where you grew up. I need to have an effective feel for being your brother. ”

  “And where do you intend we should do that?”

  “Here, of course. I can record what you have to say and use it for further study. ”

  “I don’t like this idea. ”

  “Well, we needn’t get too personal. Just atmosphere stuff, a shared sense of where this brother and sister came from. ”

  “That’s not what I mean. When I tell a man about my past it’s usually in one of two places: Over a fine dinner by candlelight. Or in his arms after sex. ”

  “Say, I was wondering about your past!” Petey piped up to no response from us.

  “So what are you suggesting?”

  “Roee says you enjoy Santa Barbara. ”

  “I do. ”

  “Fine. Pick me up in the morning. Not before ten. ” She returned to the library.

  “Roee?”

  “You have reservations, Mr. Harrington, at the Four Seasons Biltmore. ”