Shining City

by Seth Greenland

  “You watch me,” Lenore was saying. “I’ll get a job as a stripper!”

  After dinner, Nathan took Bertrand Russell for a walk and Lenore smoked a postprandial joint in her room. When they were alone, Marcus asked Jan what she’d told Plum regarding her request for an egg donation.

  “I told her to forget it,” Jan said, wiping the table with a dishrag. “Can you imagine Plum walking around with my eggs in her so she can make some wacky video? I don’t need the drama. We need less drama around here, right?” Then she kissed his guilty lips. He noticed it was a chaste kiss, with a residue of anxiety, and it caused him to realize that she had still not internalized their change in fortune.

  Marcus did not try to make love to Jan that night. Instead, he lay in bed next to her as she slept and ran through what he would say to the Shining City workforce the next day. Although he had run the factory at Wazoo Toys for over a decade, the management skill required to do the job was rudimentary. The workers arrived at the factory at nine, lunch was at twelve-thirty, and the day ended at five o’clock. Payday was Friday every other week. Employees were given two weeks of paid vacation per year and up to a week of sick days. Occasionally, Marcus would have to hire a new worker, but usually someone on the line had a relative who needed a job, so replacing those who left was generally effortless. It had been a very simple arrangement, running Wazoo, and none of it prepared Marcus for the endeavor in which he was now engaged. Nor had he anticipated having a partner, albeit one who, so far, was only in for twenty percent of the business. Kostya seemed like he knew what he was doing, but what if he was a living Russian nested doll, with innumerable other Kostyas inside waiting to reveal themselves. Would they be merry and bright, or murderous and low? Marcus felt a rumbling in his gut. There was tension in his neck. He took two Tylenol and chased them with a shot of Pepto-Bismol.

  He didn’t think he should wear a tie to the meeting—that was too formal. Not wanting to appear aloof, he selected a navy blue merino wool sweater and khakis, an ensemble he thought sent exactly the right message of casual confidence. He was feeling anything but casual and confident as he drove toward West Hollywood, but that was beside the point. He knew it was incumbent upon him to fake both of these qualities, which would be a problem if he couldn’t get his pulse to slow down. He regretted the coffee he’d had at breakfast.

  The gathering had been called for one o’clock in the afternoon because Kostya had informed Marcus that people in this line of employment tended to be late sleepers. There were twelve women in the room ranging in age from what he dearly hoped was at least eighteen all the way up to what looked like forty. They were milling around in an open area behind the clothing rack, talking in small groups, catching up on gossip, exchanging work stories. Occasionally one of them would furtively examine Marcus, but he was careful not to make eye contact. He wasn’t ready for that yet. As he stole sidelong glances, he was struck by the ordinariness of the women. Far from ravenous sex monsters, oozing carnality and appetite, they all appeared normal, particularly to someone who lived in Los Angeles. They could have been shoppers randomly gleaned from a mall, or a group of women gathered for a seminar on how to sell vitamin supplements. Julian clearly operated a fairly rigorous screening process when it came to the physical qualities of the girls he chose to employ. All of them were attractive and in what appeared to be good physical shape. Those who had visible body piercings and tattoos didn’t look like sideshow freaks. Hair was well-cut and appeared in the same shades of blonde, brunette, and red one would see on prosperous pedestrians strolling along the upscale boulevards of any American city. Several of the girls wore short skirts but, again, nothing that would have been out of place at Winthrop Hall. Ethnically, they were a rainbow coalition: whites of varying complexions ranging from Nordic to Mediterranean, Latinas, Asians, and two light-skinned black women. A Crayola box of prostitutes.

  Kostya, who had been standing nearby talking to a short Asian woman in jeans and a leather jacket, approached Marcus and said “You better get started.”

  “Is everyone here?”

  “Enough so you do your thing.” Then he leaned in and whispered

  “Make ’em believe you care, Marcus. Everyone is needing love.” Kostya turned away, then remembered something. “What is your name?”

  “My name?”

  “You are supposed to have new name for girls today.”

  Marcus had forgotten to come up with a new identity, preoccupied as he was with other aspects of the radical shift taking place. He racked his already overtaxed brain for a moment and said “Cool Breeze.” It was the name he had given himself six years ago at an Indian Guides campfire in the backyard of an investment banker in a gated community north of Mulholland. He and Nathan had sat in a circle and each father and son, in turn, chose an Indian handle. Nathan had been Great Salmon, which Marcus had thought had the perfect ring (although his friends quickly changed it to Nate Salmon). At the time, he was pleased with Cool Breeze as well, and he hoped it would suit the current situation.

  “Cool breeze?” Kostya asked, stifling a laugh. “Maybe just Breeze.”

  Marcus nodded, slightly embarrassed by his tin ear. “You like my sweater?” he asked sotto voce, trying to lighten what was clearly a stressful moment for him.

  Kostya reached over, pulled a thread from where the weave had begun unraveling, and whispered “I take you shopping after this.” Then he turned to the assembled labor force and said “Everybody, I know this is confuckulated and we are having shock about Juice …” He paused here, allowing the women to nod in sympathetic agreement, something two of them actually did. “But you got bills and life is going on. Now, I am asking you to give it up for Juice’s man, Breeze.” Kostya stepped aside with a flourish and was met with dead silence.

  Marcus grimaced tightly and faced his audience. They stared back at him, a few of them smiling reflexively, but from the rest—nothing. He might as well have been a sport fish mounted on a wall. He watched them holding back, waiting. He assumed they were wondering if this was someone upon whom they could rely, imagined many of them were considering jumping ship. Marcus felt his forehead prickle and beads of sweat begin to form. He wished he hadn’t worn the merino wool sweater. It was warmer than he’d remembered.

  “My name is Breeze,” he began. They looked at him phlegmatically. At least they weren’t laughing. His formal bearing suddenly struck him as absurd, given that he was addressing a roomful of hookers, but he did not have an alternative demeanor upon which to draw at that moment. “Juice was my brother, although we weren’t very close,” he added completely unnecessarily and in a way that suggested trepidation. As he considered what to say next he looked at the faces of his audience and began the breathing technique he practiced in moments of stress. He hoped this would suggest it was he who was sizing them up, as opposed to the other way around.

  What he noticed first was that many of the women had intelligent faces. Dimly, he recalled Kostya telling him that Julian liked to employ women capable of carrying on a conversation. He noticed Amstel standing in the back and remembered that she had been reading the short stories of an obscure European author. He imagined her accepting payment from a UCLA-funded deconstructionist who had chosen to spend his grant money to further pursue an interest in sodomy. Marcus knew his pause had gotten longer than dramatic and was heading for soporific, so he continued “I want to thank you all for coming,” groaning inwardly as he said it. He admonished himself to get to the point. Which was what? To get these workers to agree to run their business under his aegis. Then do it now, he told himself, now!

  “I am not a pimp,” he said. This declaration sounded jarring to his ears, but he noticed it got their attention. Temporarily buoyed, he continued “What I am is a businessman. I ran a toy business for a long time in the Valley, and I think I can say with some accuracy that I was a popular boss.” A few of them nodded, pleased at this revelation. “I’m not equating selling toys with selling what we’re goin
g to be selling here …” he paused for the expected laugh and actually received a few appreciative giggles. “But business is business and what I’m about is people. I can tell you categorically that I am a people person.” Marcus found the words people person singularly idiotic, yet knew it was a phrase to which, for some reason, many individuals seemed to respond. If millions of American idiots can choose a president based on whom they would want to have a beer with, it was probably not a bad yardstick by which a prostitute can choose a pimp, even if it’s a pimp who does not embrace the designation. “The fact is, I love people. Black people, white people, Asian people.” As he said Asian people, he made eye contact with the Asian woman Kostya had been talking to before the meeting started. She grinned at him, showing a perfect row of large bleached teeth. Marcus briefly wondered if they were real, and if, with their Cuisinart aspect, they would frighten a client who hoped for a blow job. “I want to meet with each one of you individually to see if we can work together. I want to get to know you. Now you’re probably thinking we’ve been working for Juice, we trusted Juice. Who is this guy from the toy business, and why should we believe him? I’ll tell you why. Because I’m fair, I’m honest, and I will help set up a 401(k) for anyone who wants it.” There were murmurs of assent, and as Marcus leaned back on his heels for a moment he asked himself where the idea for the retirement plans had arrived from. Truly, he had no answer, nor did he have any idea how to set up a 401(k) account, but he was on a roll now. “There’s going to be health insurance, and, for those who log a certain number of hours—paid vacation. I want to make one last point. Things don’t always go the way we want them to, and a situation might arise where someone needs a lawyer. My closest friend is one of the finest criminal lawyers in Los Angeles. Anything happens to someone working for me … just know you will have the finest legal representation available.” It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment to invoke Atlas, but he was pleased with himself for having thought to cite their relationship. Conversely, he would not be mentioning any of this to Atlas. Marcus concluded his remarks with a public-service announcement about the necessity of condoms.

  The moment Amstel began to applaud and was followed by a second woman and then a third, Marcus vowed to himself that he would figure out how all this would work as soon as possible. For an encore, he told them he would be accessible, that he intended to listen to whatever grievances they might have and their proposed solutions to those grievances, should they have any to suggest. To this end, he circulated a sheet of paper on which he asked everyone to write their e-mail addresses. Marcus thanked them for coming and assured the group he was looking forward to working with each and every one. Marcus understood the value of being liked. You would have thought he was running for office.

  His general bonhomie appeared to affect the women, who seemed willing to—for the time being at least—place their livelihoods in his care. Thus the meeting ended on a positive note, with many of the workers appearing confident they were in the capable hands of someone who knew what he was doing.

  Two women approached, one of whom spoke in the flat tones of the Midwest, the other in a musical Brazilian accent. They informed him they’d been with Julian in the hot tub prior to his having expired and seemed genuinely distressed by what had happened. Marcus assumed they were led to this spontaneous display of condolence by the sincerity with which he had addressed the group. It would have been a perfect encounter had the Brazilian woman not ended it this way: “We think Juice dying is a sign for us, and we came today to show respect. So you’re cool and everything, Breeze, but we’re getting out of the business.”

  After the women left, Kostya told him not to worry. “In Los Angeles a hundred girls a day are signing up.” They ran an ad in the local alternative weekly, and days later they had four new recruits. When Marcus wondered how to keep potential dry cleaning customers at bay, Kostya informed him that the closed sign was a permanent feature in the Shining City window.

  Chapter 12

  If everyone in the business was presumed to be at least a little dishonest, then discreet supervision was common sense. So Marcus decided that he would serve as a driver and rotate between the various members of his organization. He believed it would give him a chance to bond with the women and render them less likely to explore their larcenous impulses. He explained his nocturnal absences to Jan by telling her he was personally delivering the dry cleaning so he could get to know his customers and learn the business from the ground up. Since people were likelier to be home in the evenings, that was when he would work. Jan was so relieved that money was coming in that she didn’t think to question the plan.

  More women could fit in the minivan than the Honda, so Marcus asked Jan if she would mind temporarily trading cars. He told her he needed it for deliveries, and she was only too happy to help out. This is how he found himself early one cool autumn evening behind the wheel of the Ripps family minivan stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway with three prostitutes—one in the passenger seat and two in the back. They had gathered at Shining City so Marcus could chauffeur them to their appointments. Kostya was driving three women in the dry cleaning van, and two other women would be working in shifts at the Beverly Hills-adjacent apartment that night.

  One of the women with Marcus, a Nicaraguan named Xiomara, was new to the business. She sat in the back seat with Amstel. Mink was in the passenger seat. As the women chatted amiably, Marcus thought about the conversation he’d had with Kostya after the meeting. They had gone around the corner to an organic restaurant for lunch. Marcus wanted to talk about expanding the workforce. He needed to know how the hiring process worked.

  “You ask them what can do, can’t do,” Kostya said.

  “Like what?” Marcus was speaking in such low tones you would have thought he suspected someone had bugged the salt shaker.

  “What?” Kostya said, unable to hear him.

  “I said what,” Marcus said, barely louder. He hadn’t touched his bran muffin.

  “Like what?” Kostya said as he sipped iced green tea through a straw. “Like will they fuck? Some girls so stupid, they don’t know what is job.”

  Marcus glanced around the restaurant to make sure no one was listening. A couple of high school boys in skate shirts and cargo shorts were seated at a nearby table, but they appeared deep in conversation. The young Mexican counterman was taking a businessman’s order. Marcus relaxed slightly. He was never comfortable discussing sex, even with friends, and to have conversations of an intimate nature with a series of strange women was clearly anathema to him. Just talking about talking about it was difficult enough. “What else?”

  Kostya rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe someone could get to Marcus’s age and not know something so rudimentary. Putting his tuna on seven-grain bread down, he said “You ask them with what they are comfortable doing. Will they fuck, will they suck, will they fuck black guy? Some girls don’t like black cock … ethnic groups sometime bad … we had Armenian girl would not fuck Turk … bad history, so her pussy is closed for business … since 9/11 some girls refuse to fuck Arabs … will they do multiple hours, overnight, traveling? Will they allow kissing?” Marcus again looked around to make sure no one was listening. The counterman handed the businessman his order. The high school boys were laughing at a private joke.

  “Some girls all right with sodomy, but no kissing her … crazy shit … couples, group sex, bukkake, rusty trombone, dirty sanchez, woman-on-woman love act, whipping, spanking, tying up, having toes sucked, golden showers, hitting, spitting … do they have equipment? Handcuffs, whips, dildos … what drink they like, some guys want to know bring vodka or bring white wine for romantic evening. Then Aunt Flo comes to visit, girls on rag. Personal shit, but you got to know. Some girls want to work then, but what if client freak out? Do they have tattoos, body piercing? Some guys into serious weird shit. One guy dress like Tarzan, want to fuck in tree house. Girl scared of heights, bad night for everyone. Guys want to know they will get
what they are paying for, so you gots to know, Breeze. You gots to know.”

  Marcus had the radio in the van tuned to a classical station on the theory that the music would be calming, but the DJ had chosen that moment to play Night on Bald Mountain, which led Mink to say “Could you turn this shit off and put on some rap?” Mink was a Korean-American from Irvine; long black hair and a rockstar pout. She was the pretty woman with large teeth he had noticed during his I’m-a-people-person meeting. Now she smiled at Marcus, lightly drumming her fingers on his thigh. This gave him an instant erection. That is a problem, he thought, and vowed to do something about it, even if it necessitated a visit to his internist and prescribed medication. He told Mink to put on whatever station she preferred. When she leaned forward to touch the radio, Marcus smelled her perfume, subtle and lemony. Her makeup was lightly applied, and as she started to bob her head to the easy roll of a song she found on one of the hip-hop stations, he had to fight the urge to run his hand up her fishnet-encased leg. Taking a deep breath, he focused on the traffic as Mink closed her eyes and settled back into the seat.

  Sex outside the confines of his marriage had never particularly interested Marcus, so it came as something of a surprise when he found himself fantasizing about his new colleagues. The absence of sex in his own life had created a buildup of desire that was more profound than he had been willing to acknowledge. With monumental self-control he forced himself to think about golf, or pizza, or death— anything other than the inner trips to empyrean realms of perfect sexuality that existed in distant unmapped corners of his consciousness. He vowed not to think about the women; the white ones, the Latinas, the Asians, the African-Americans, the tall ones, the short ones, the thin ones and the plus-sized, their hair, their lips, their legs, their breasts, anything and everything about them.