Shining City

by Seth Greenland

  “You’re not telling the truth, are you?” WHAT?! Was he busted already? He had barely done anything. “Who was that guy who was here today?”

  “What guy?”

  “The one my mother told me about.”

  “Ohhh.” His relief was palpable. “He’s a delivery person.”

  “Is that all he does?”

  Had Kostya said anything to Lenore? They were stoned when Marcus saw them. Who knows what they talked about? Perhaps they traded recipes. Perhaps he told her he’d killed someone in the Ukraine. What had Lenore told Jan? Marcus’s stomach tightened again. He wanted to get her off the subject of the business as quickly as possible. “What’s going on at Ripcord?”

  “Plum did something today that kind of weirded me out. She asked if I would donate eggs to her.”

  “So, what, she would take donated sperm and your eggs…”

  Marcus felt an almost physical revulsion at this prospect, as he envisioned the ever-expanding Plum being ministered to by a team of doctors depositing his wife’s eggs into her alien womb.

  “You don’t have to worry, I’m not doing it.” She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth then lay back on the pillow. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being normal.”

  Jan closed her eyes, seemingly satisfied with this exchange. Marcus fervently hoped she would drift off to sleep and, when five minutes had passed and nothing was forthcoming from her side of the bed, gave silent thanks that his tribulations were over at least until morning.

  Unfortunately, they were not.

  Marcus woke up with an erection and what felt like an irregular heartbeat. Rain beat against the windows. Sheets of water ran off the roof and down the side of the house. It was still the middle of the night, so he went downstairs and made tea. His hand trembled as he spooned honey into the ceramic mug Nathan had made for him. Sipping it slowly, he searched for the sports page and read it until he calmed down.

  When Marcus awoke at six-thirty the next morning and made his way downstairs, he was greeted by the sight of his mother-in-law standing in the middle of the kitchen, smoking a joint as she made oatmeal.

  “I couldn’t sleep because of the eye pain. You want a hit?”

  “Lenore, it’s not even seven o’clock yet,” he said, waving off the joint. “And you’re only supposed to smoke that in your room.” They had discussed this the night of the cop’s visit, and Lenore had agreed to confine her “treatment” to her own territory, away from Nathan.

  “I know, I know. It’s just I feel like a junkie in there, getting high all alone. You think Kostya will come back? I liked him.” Marcus felt great sympathy for her, standing at the stove in her acrylic jogging outfit with her large glasses that did not appear to be doing any good at all. She turned her attention back to the oatmeal, stirring it with a large spoon. “You sure you don’t want some of this?”

  “Lenore, put out the joint. Nate’s coming down for breakfast soon …”

  “Nate knows what’s going on.”

  “I know he knows. I just don’t think he needs to see his grandmother constantly getting high. It’s not good modeling.” There was a strain in his voice that he did not like. But circumstances being what they were he was unable to do anything about it. “Did Kostya say anything about my brother’s business?”

  “We talked about Krav Maga. It’s a martial art. I might take a class.”

  “You’re going to study martial arts?”

  “That or pole dancing. I’m not sure which one is safer. I saw a story on the local news about this girl who was teaching a pole dancing class. She did an upside down move and landed on her head. Cracked two vertebrae.”

  “That’s all you and Kostya talked about?” He was not going to follow Lenore into the pole dancing cul-de-sac.

  “You should loosen up, Marcus. Not that I can see your face, but I bet that vein in your forehead is sticking out.” She turned the stove off and spooned some oatmeal into a bowl. Then she took a last toke, licked her fingers, and touched them to the end of the joint, extinguishing its modest flame.

  On the ride to school that morning Nathan rattled on about a new online video game his friends were playing. It involved Huns, Visigoths, and other ancient barbarians wreaking brain-deadening havoc on each other in the most sadistic ways. Marcus could barely pay attention. After describing a particularly gory moment, Nathan asked half-seriously if Marcus would buy him an arcade game. These games, far more elaborate, expensive, and coveted than the ones found in boys’ bedrooms around the world, were the holy grail for Nathan’s peer group. Far superior to ordinary video games, they conferred exalted status on any kid who managed to get his parents to buy one. Marcus locked into the conversation long enough to offer his usual “We can’t afford it.” He was relieved when the boy climbed out of the car. No longer would he have to pretend to be anything other than utterly preoccupied with the dilemma tormenting him. The moment his Honda Civic rolled off the leafy Winthrop Hall campus, Marcus pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

  An hour later he was seated across from Kostya in a booth at Sal’s Diner, a slick memory of a benign 1950s, bereft of racism, polio, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Kostya was counting the money when the waitress approached. Marcus ordered a tuna sandwich on wheat toast, and Kostya requested macaroni and cheese and a chocolate milkshake. When the waitress left, Marcus asked how much he knew about the business.

  After giving his interlocutor a cagey glance, Kostya told him: “Everything.”

  Impressed but not sure how much to believe, Marcus said “What does ‘everything’ entail?”

  Kostya started ticking information off on his fingers. “Who is girls, how much they make, what they like, don’t like, who regoolars are, how much they pay and for what, who like to work when, where from girls come, recruitment. I know all that shit, yo. I know they call Juice when they get to where they going, and calls him when they done—safety. Like ho buddy system. Juice hardass mo’fucka, but he look out for ladies. I tell you what also…”

  “What’s that?” Marcus asked, genuinely curious what other intelligence this font might spout.

  “Is tough keeping drivers.”

  “This is L.A. Doesn’t everyone have a car?”

  “Sure they got the rides, but sometime they like to know mack with gat sitting in car. Client get too freaky, someone bust cap in ass.”

  Marcus surmised that Kostya had spent a good part of his youth in a wretched Eastern European apartment, watching bootleg DVDs of American blaxploitation movies.

  The food arrived, and after they had each taken a few bites, chewing quietly, Kostya took a sip of his milkshake, licked the chalky residue off his upper lip, and said “What business for you?”

  “I ran a factory. It moved to China.”

  Kostya shoved another spoonful of the mac and cheese into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Why you want to be hustla? The business …” He made a sour face.

  “The whole economy’s bad.”

  “No doubt,” Kostya said, sprinkling some pepper on his macaroni and cheese, then mixing it in with his fork. “But supply/demand, yo. Mo’fuckas always wanting pussy.” As Kostya continued to eat his food, pontificating about the sex business and how Julian ran his little corner, it dawned on Marcus that if he was going to use this as a means to pay his bills, crawl out of debt, and spring for his son’s bar mitzvah, it would not be a bad idea to have a more experienced hand at his side until such time as he could run things himself with some degree of confidence.

  “How much did Julian pay you?” He quickly corrected himself.

  “Juice, I mean. I’m curious because I’m going to need to hire someone.”

  “Not enough, Gangstaboy.”

  Marcus had done some calculations in his head as they were sitting in the diner and had worked out how much on average Julian must have been earning.

  “How’s four hundred dollars a week?”

  “I’
m laughing,” Kostya said, not laughing at all.

  Marcus quickly changed tactics. “What do you want to do? Professionally, I mean. You said you had plans?”

  Kostya smiled. This was a topic to which he warmed. “Niggas and Koreans be loving barbecue. But since L.A. riots, niggas and Koreans hating mo’fucking guts of each other. Most niggas Christian. I know Allah-worshipping mo’fuckas trying to get niggas to Islam but you take from me, Gangstaboy, most niggas with Jesus.” Marcus nodded his head, dumbly. As a philosopher manqué adrift in the world of toy manufacturing for nearly fifteen years, Marcus was painfully aware of how a person could be judged solely by his external circumstances, and he made a point of not doing it himself. He was impressed by the beginning of Kostya’s sociological exegesis, the way this son of Mother Russia free-styled like he was born in Detroit. “Most Koreans Christian, too, right? At least ones in L.A. My homeboy Jesus say you gots to love enemy like sibling. I will open Jesus-Loves-2-Barbecue on Crenshaw Boulevard halfway between Koreatown and South Central, put big-ass cross made of two giant ribs on roof. 2 Barbecue, okay?” He drew the number two with his finger in the air to make his meaning clear. “T-O, okay? Then I get peoples from both communities eating barbecue side by side, yo. Dr. King not only one with mo’fucking dream, Gangstaboy. I got dream, too. I see Koreans eating cornbread sitting next to niggas eating kimchi, everybody eating ribs. Is my dream.”

  It took Marcus a moment to recover from this image of a cross made out of two huge ribs. When he did the first thought he had was: If I ever said anything like that, I’d be called a racist, but coming from this guy it sounds nearly legitimate. “Where are you going to get the money?”

  “I’m saving my dollars, yo. Peoples going to looovve concept.”

  “You’re probably right … I’m not saying they won’t.” Marcus nodded thoughtfully here, paying homage to Kostya’s vision. “But in case they don’t? How about working for me?”

  “On salary? Fuck that shit.” Marcus asked him what it would take to make a deal. Kostya drained his milkshake, then took a sip of water from the glass in front of him. He placed the paper napkin to his lips and daubed at the remains of his drink. Then he looked at Marcus and said “A piece of business.”

  “You know the whole shebang. You could take it over yourself, outmaneuver me … I know how this shit goes down.” Shit goes down? Marcus was tentatively gangsterizing his tone, although he wished he hadn’t said shebang. “Why don’t you want to take it over yourself?”

  “Because if we get busted, yo. It’s your black ass doing time.”

  And so before the check arrived (which Marcus graciously picked up) he had a partner, who was in for twenty percent of whatever turned out to be Marcus’s share. They agreed to contact all of the girls and ask them to come to the dry cleaner for a meeting where Marcus would explain his plans. It was very important this be done quickly—they were far from the only game in town and, as in the African bush, the danger of poaching was great. Marcus didn’t want to move to the recruitment phase of the plan until he had to. He was hoping he could induce enough of the girls to stay until he had time to acclimate himself to the business.

  As they walked to their cars, parked in a lot behind the diner, Marcus asked “What kind of operation was my brother running? The girls … what are they like?”

  “Juice was trying to keep it classy, best he could. You know, these girls, they not brain surgeons. But Juice liking them to have intelligent conversation. Thinking he get more money johns that way, less likely to beat up girls. Bad for girls, bad for you. It maybe surprise you what some guys ask girl. One night, she in bathtub, making piss on guy—the next night some mo’fucka want to take her to movie, talk about where should invest money, and no fucking. Is weird business, meet all kinds peoples. But for me is not career.”

  “Me neither,” Marcus said, trying to maintain his positive attitude.

  Kostya ran down the list of girls, told Marcus about their quirks and foibles (this one was always late, that one didn’t tip the drivers, another refused to do bondage) and most important, which of them might be using drugs. “Permit me to be telling you about hoes and dope,” Kostya said. He waited a moment while a young mother clad in a magenta catsuit strapped her three-year-old into a car seat. When she climbed behind the wheel of her Volvo station wagon, he continued “Many of these services liking ladies doing the coke because then they go all night with sex. And if they get hooked, less likely to leave business because one thing junkie needs? Mo’ money. About the coke, Juice was sometimes easy. You want to not be so easy. Some of johns high but you always wanting girl in control. Lots of variables in business. Whole idea is control variables.” Marcus was more impressed with his new colleague every minute. His logic was right out of an M.B.A. program. “And wear tomorrow a decent suit. You want confidence from girls.”

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Marcus said, gesturing to his chino/golf shirt ensemble.

  “You look like square biscuit, yo. Plus you need new name. Don’t want girls calling you by real name. Less they knowing, more okay for you.” Then he made a fist and attempted to engage Marcus in the latest street handshake.

  As per Dominic Festa’s report, Julian kept an apartment for assignations that didn’t take place in either hotels or private homes, nestled on a side street just north of Burton Way in a modern five-story building. It was a generically furnished studio with a living room set and a freshly made double bed. Taped to the refrigerator was a note from the maid asking to be paid. Helpfully, she’d written her phone number on the note, and when Marcus called, he both apprised her of Julian’s passing and retained her services.

  By the early afternoon, Marcus was driving home. His life was going in a new direction and he tried his best to put a good face on it. This time would be short, lucrative, and secret. There was an optimistic grain deep in Marcus’s core, a quality that allowed him to believe in the future no matter the current circumstances, and now he found himself excited about the possibilities of his new business. Roon had been rapacious in his approach to the workforce at Wazoo—low wages, minimum benefits, mediocre working conditions. Marcus would be benevolent. Roon viewed his employees as fungible units in an economic machine. Marcus would regard them as individuals and treat them with dignity. Roon’s management style was high-handed, un-empathic. Marcus would be caring. He’d try to understand his labor force and work with them. He vowed to be an enlightened potentate, running the business according to the highest standards of American management practice, not like Roon, who ran Wazoo like a pimp.

  Chapter 11

  Marcus was not an easy liar, so it was with some misgiving that he returned to what was now a distinctly separate life in Van Nuys. As he drove home beneath a threatening autumn sky, Marcus calculated that, if he was able to maintain the level of Julian’s workforce, his financial situation could be ameliorated in approximately six months, and in a year, roughly the time of Nathan’s bar mitzvah, he would be significantly in the black. With an additional couple of years he could pay off the mortgage on his house. But he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. He figured he would dive into the demimonde and start swimming. When he arrived at the far shore he would climb out, towel off, and act like nothing had happened.

  At dinner that night Lenore was twirling spaghetti on her fork. She paused before placing it in her mouth. “It combines dance, sensual movement, and traditional stripper moves.”

  “Stripper moves?” Nathan said.

  “The flying body spiral, the fire fly, the descending angel … it’s like ballet.”

  “In a G-string,” Jan said.

  “Why should I be afraid of my body? I’m not that old. Jan, you should come with me. You’d really like the teacher. She’s a former exotic dancer.” Lenore said this in the same tone she would have used had the words been formerly with Twyla Tharp.

  “Maybe I’ll take a class with you,” Jan said.

  “Mom, eww …” Nathan
was mortified at the mental image of his barely clad mother slinging herself around a pole with incongruous abandon.

  While his family continued the dinner conversation, Marcus was reflecting on his secret and experiencing the disorienting sensation that accompanied it. No longer was he the anonymous factory manager of Wazoo Toys, late of North Hollywood, now of Guodong, and of supreme unimportance to anyone, save to those who coveted toy replicas of praying American presidents. Now he was a man whose cover as a mild-mannered small business owner obscured a transgressor of the social norm, a citizen of the night. Indeed, a criminal.

  “More brussels sprouts?” Jan said, holding a serving bowl for Marcus. She was smiling and he smiled back at her, as he ladled the globular vegetables on to his plate. He knew his wife looked at him and saw her husband, a family man who, through a well-deserved stroke of luck, was going to be operating a successful dry cleaning establishment. He sensed that she felt far more secure than she had recently, the crumbling edifice on which she had been standing now patched and reinforced. Steady Marcus, easy Marcus, good provider, good father, exceedingly good husband. He knew her look was one of affection, certainly, but also of relief, because he had delivered her from the edge of an abyss.

  Marcus returned her smile, her love, calmly. There was a serene quality in his look achieved through a subtle breathing technique he had learned watching a martial arts movie on cable one of the many nights he couldn’t sleep. Behind his eyes, an entire dance company was performing a Las Vegas confection of glitz and sleaze. Leggy, high-heeled chorines were pirouetting down curving silver staircases in silk stockings and clinging gold spandex, holding signs lettered with words like Whoremonger and Flesh Peddler. They were wheeling, kicking, bumping, grinding, executing the most complicated choreography to the raucous blare of a horn section only Marcus could hear as he ate his dinner and tried to listen while the members of his family talked about their days. He was now a clandestine agent in his own home, a man whose innermost thoughts could not be shared with those closest to him. He was surprised at the frisson he was experiencing.