by Bruce Wagner
What was he afraid of? He was afraid of hearing Laxmi say that it was nuts, and she was sorry, but she just couldn’t shake the kikey SOB; that Levin had some kind of psychosexual strangle-hold on her. He was afraid of the pathology—too much of a daddy thing going on. Maybe Maurie and her old man even looked the same, smelled the same….
Chess pushed the bad thoughts from his head and watched the desertscape zoom by. His backpack was filled with dope, and books too—Laxmi had picked up some “spiritual volumes” for him at the Bodhi Tree a few weeks back. A nice surprise. Chess was pretty sure at this point the relationship between them was still secret, and that made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Fuck that prick. He enjoyed having the books along, he’d stowed them away like a taboo treasure trove, thinking of them as love letters. He was “holding,” and it gave him a little goose—suddenly, he remembered the Viagra. Not that anything was going to happen. Not on this trip, anyway. You never knew.
THE casino was a slick dumb orange building looming out of nowhere like a humungous stereo cabinet from Circuit City. They dropped a few dollars at the tables before checking in. The Indians were stealing their money already.
Laxmi dragged them to the spa and the Jew reserved 3 late-afternoon massages (evidently, they weren’t so busy). He said to charge them to his room. Big man. Chess couldn’t even believe she was staying with Maurie—he was more stunned than pissed—and when Laxmi took him aside to whisper something about “twin beds,” like that was supposed to make it all better, he just shrugged. The FNF conspiracy theories swept back over him…but why should he care? It was none of his business and he didn’t want to feel foolish. He didn’t want to feel foolish about anything anymore. He was gonna sue the motherfuckers, and if Laxmi wanted to drop by the pad and smoke his dope and let him look at the hair on her legs, fuck it.
They had 4 hours to chill before getting rubbed. Maybe he’d check out the pool or the gym or go take a nap. Chess wondered if the masseuses gave hand jobs. He figured there was a pretty good chance because the place was new, and it might be part of a secret corporate policy to keep guests coming back. He reminded himself they were there to location scout for a commercial, but it felt kind of bogus, and he couldn’t shake the idea that Levin was out to grease him so he’d drop his lawsuit (which he already might have blown) and join the FNF payroll. He didn’t trust the Jew for shit.
MAURIE said they could wake up early and scout on Sunday morning before brunch. He told Laxmi she could sleep in. Then, around noon, they’d drive to “Las Viagras.” That wasn’t part of the plan and Laxmi hated the idea. One casino was enough. Maurie said cool, they could hang at Morongo or get stoned in Joshua Tree or have “supper” at the Viceroy, in the Springs. Laxmi wasn’t into it. She said they should go back to LA after breakfast, but then she got to thinking about Joshua Tree and how that might be trippy. Chess couldn’t see himself spazzing around in the high desert but kept his mouth shut. He’d just stay in his room—he was in pain most of the time anyway, still fine-tuning the medley of meds that mellowed him out. That’s how fucked up it was: he’d become some housebound geezer, cozily experimenting with milligram’d combo-plates.
At a certain point, they wound up alone in the elevator. He told Laxmi he’d brought the Karma Sutra she gave him (the other Bodhi Tree books were weirder, and he hadn’t yet delved into them) and she smiled, without enthusiasm or innuendo. When he made a move to kiss her—he was just stoned enough—she backed away, saying, “We shouldn’t.” He tensed up. His neck and shoulders stung and throbbed. OK—cool. That’s cool. I can live with that. Probably not such a great idea. Fuck it, we’ll always have Griffith Park. If he had to stretch the truth a bit, he actually liked that she was being prudent, or prudish, or whatever. Besides, if they did the deed, the Viagra might interact with other drugs he was taking and give him vertigo again. Just what he needed: Laxmi goes consensual then he pukes on her during the Tantric Tortoise, the Pair of Tongs, the Splitting Bamboo.
The Jew and the Lotus retired to their suite to “rinse off” and lie down. Did that mean they were going to fuck? What else could it mean? He was the lowest of the low—a cuckold without a wife. His rage at Maurie boomeranged. He decided to hit the casino. Walk it off. He checked out the losers at the slots then went to the spa and had a few words with the proprietress. Then he rode the elevator to 1508, replaying the other ride, with Laxmi, in his head, his failed minimove rocket-to-nowhere. It had embarrassed him. On top of it (and he knew this was sick) was the part that felt guilty about his behavior—that he’d betrayed his friend, the man who had caused him grievous injury! At least, he thought, I’m lucid enough to know that it’s only the irrational thoughts of a depressive mindspace.
Chess sat on the bed, lit a joint, and flipped through the trove. The pages actually smelled like her—that patchouli vibe. The ludicrous thing was, the Karma Sutra had a whole section with the rubric, “Other Men’s Wives,” detailing how a man had the universal right to fuck a married woman! There were entire lists of what made hapless brides “eligible” for adultery: like if a gal was neglected or scorned, or had married someone beneath her caste, or even if her husband happened to have “many brothers.” (Laxmi was a strong candidate—Maurie had neglected and scorned her, and was definitely beneath her caste. Plus, the Jew used to refer to Chess as his “brother.”) He laughed aloud at the following passage: “Just as medical science explains that for certain diseases one should eat dog meat, similarly, in special circumstances, an individual may find himself in need of sleeping with other men’s wives, and he should put it into practice only after a serious study of the Karma Sutra.” Well, right on! Let the serious studies begin! He flipped through another book, the strangest in the litter, and this one offered conflicting views: if the spouse cheated, why, then she should “sleep in a trough of cow dung for a year,” and be paraded through town on a black donkey. Hey, whatever gets your Ganges wet. This particularly sizable volume was way harsh, declaring that if a man poured the pork to his brother’s wife, it was thereby proclaimed he should rip out his own cock and balls (a neat trick! whoa!), cup em in his hands, and walk in a “southerly direction.” Right on. But my personal opinion is the dude ain’t gonna feel up to no stroll.
Chess returned to the enlightened pages of the Karma, to the addendum called “Justification for Seducing Other Men’s Wives.” Thus it was written: if a guy had insomnia “for thinking of the object of desire,” or if he is obsessing, well, then, that was enough of a reason. Shit. Jesus. This is crazy. The book was really growing on him…then came the coup de grâce: “weakness leading to vertigo” was in there too! If you were feeling vertiginous, you could get jiggy with your neighbor’s Mrs! Vertigo! It said that! The ultimate Epley Maneuver! Now, that was freakish. He realized how stoned he was, and wound up masturbating to the book’s X-rated illustrations, suffused with Laxmi’s smell.
ABOUT an hour before the massages, everyone met for drinks in a lounge off the casino. Tanqueray and Vicodin had Chess seriously toasted. Maurie was on another roll about the “shitfaced brownskins” and Laxmi shushed him. Chess began to riff about a white-collar con he’d read about that made the Sioux look like pikers.
“Ever heard of whistleblowers? You know, those guys in big corporations who snitch to the government?”
“Like The Insider,” said Maurie.
“I love Al Pacino,” said Laxmi.
“Right.” He felt in the groove, and flashed on the chapter of the Karma Sutra that said married women liked to be seduced by good storytellers. “There’s this whole confidence game where people whistleblow, but the shit they’re exposing isn’t true. The government has whistleblowing laws—some of em guarantee 30% of whatever money is recovered. So there’s this guy who whistle-blew—”
“Whistle blow-me!” said Maurie, and Laxmi giggled.
The remark was indecorous, not the usual thing she laughed at, which made Chess fleetingly paranoid. Maybe that was what Hippie Slut dug, that was
the hook. Maybe her dad was like that—a captivating Jew with a dirty mouth. Lord Ganesha, guardian of the anus.
“The feds wound up giving him a hundred and 26,000,000!”
“Jesus.”
“He goes on Oprah like some kinda hero then retires to a gated community. A few years later, they find out everything he told em was just some kind of half-truth. But it’s too late. They dig a little further. The so-called kickbacks and price hikes he ratted about never fucking happened. So a federal jury convenes and declares the defendants—”
“Whistle blow-me!”
“—not guilty. The employees all get off. But the whistleblower doesn’t have to return the fed’s thank-you money!”
“You mean the fed’s fuck-you money,” said Maurie, with a leer. “Everybody should get off.”
“The moral of the story is, the government can be hustled. I mean, it’s like those sex harassment suits where companies used to have to pay people just to go away.”
“Don’t go away horny…just go away. That’s what Laxmi’s been saying.”
“It’s the modern-day version. And it doesn’t even have to be a bigass company. Let’s say some poor shrink—”
“You mean there is such a thing?” interjected Maurie, looking quizzically toward Laxmi, who giggled and choked, the drink fizzing through her nose.
“—overcharges someone a hundred bucks. For a hundred-dollar overcharge, the feds can ask for a fine of like 60,000,000. Restitution under the False Claims Act.”
“You’ve got way too much time on your hands, Desperado.” Maurie shook his head and threw Laxmi a what-the-fuck’s-he-talking-about look. Then: “You’re like a fuckin expert. You’re like Lewis Black, without the humor.” He belched, chirped, and cooed (while Laxmi laughed, convulsively), then theatrically scrunched his face to look at Chester sideways—like some tweaky owl out of Harry Potter. “You sound like a…what do they call those people? Magpies? No—agitators? Agent provocateurs! Nah, that ain’t it either. Gadflies! That’s what you are! You’re a fuckin gadfly!” He screwed up an eye, and whispered conspiratorially. “Now: you don’t suddenly know so much cause you’ve been busy researching Herlihy v Friday Night Frights—is that why you know so much? Look out, world! Mr False Claims Restitution is about to wreak havoc! Godzilla? Meet Fraudzilla!” (Her laughter diminished.) “Bionic ethics! You want to be on Oprah too, don’t you! That’s what this is about. You want to be in a million little pieces! You want to make a million little dollars! Or maybe have your own show like Dr Phil! Dr Chester! Dr Chester the Restituted Molester!”
Laxmi put a hand on Chess’ leg, though not in any overtly sexual way—closer to the knee. She probably just felt bad she’d laughed so hard, at his expense. Her way of letting him know it was nothing personal and that mostly she was just stoned. Maurie grunted, stood, and went to the head. Chess paid the bar tab.
When he returned, they strolled past the noise of the slots to the Sage.
A sullen silence overtook the 2 men. Laxmi walked between them as a buffer. She stared straight ahead, pretending all was well, now and then glancing at one or the other peripherally. Maurie’s appointment was half an hour before the others’. He was getting Deep Tissue and Chess was having Sacred Stone. Laxmi had signed up for the Desert Volcanic Fango Body Mask/Sage Body Polish.
He hung back while his friends went to shower, and confirmed the arrangement made earlier. Because Maurie requested a woman, Chess had been stuck with a male therapist, a sweet-faced black masseur he bumped into that 2nd time at the spa—while the happy couple were upstairs doing their rinse-off. That’s when he got his brainstorm. He slipped the girl a hundie to ensure a “mix-up,” telling her it was his friend’s 40th and they’d been playing practical jokes on each other all week long. Luckily, she was game.
The only thing that would ruin the prank was if Maurie had a tantrum, and walked out.
But Chess didn’t think that likely.
LVI.
Marjorie
THEY went shopping at Saks and Neiman’s.
At 1st, she felt abashed—Marjorie couldn’t remember the last time she bought clothes for herself, and was still in a period of mourning Hamilton. But her new friend did much to raise her spirits. They tried on everything from frocks to 35,000 dollar gowns. Bonita said this would be the party of their lives, and they should just say the hell with it. Marj wound up with an aristocratically festive suit by YSL, but her Sister was more daring: a Céline cherry bouclé jacket, and a, well, interesting ensemble by an unpronounceable Japanese designer.
At the last minute, Bonita said she’d foolishly left her pocketbook at home. Marj offered to put the 85-hundred dollar charge on her Visa—Bonita would have nothing of it. When the old woman finally said she wasn’t going to leave the store without the dresses, the Sister almost tearfully relented. She said she would bring a check to Spago tonight. As they left the Fifth Avenue Club, they sang “High Hopes,” arm in arm, followed by a darling young man who carried their things. It was like out of a movie or a dream.
MARJ was so excited she didn’t know what to do with herself. It was only 3 o’clock and the dinner was at 8. She bounced around the house, singing, “Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant,” and whispering under her breath, “Dinner at 8! Dinner at 8!” She decided to burn off energy and stroll over to Riki’s for a lottery ticket.
Home again, she languorously picked through a bookshelf in the den while running a bath. She hadn’t seen this one in what seemed like a century: a moss-green copy of The Jungle Book with a faded Piranesi-style arch ex Libris: RAYMOND RAUSCH pasted inside. She loved Kipling, as had her father (the writer was born in Bombay, so Marj felt an immediate kinship. She always imagined he looked like Sean Connery, who played one of his characters in that glorious movie The Man Who Would Be King). She was almost certain Rudyard had stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace—maybe she’d ask Joanie to look it up on her computer.
Marj flipped through the pages as she soaked in the tub, careful to keep elbows above water. She remembered her ex husband reading to Chester at bedtime—especially “Toomai of the Elephants.” Oh, Chess loved that one! It was the story of a little boy who was told about something no man or mahout had ever seen: clearings deep in the forest called elephants’ ballrooms where the ancient creatures went to dance. Could anything be more delightful? She reread it, and the sound of Ray’s voice rushed back to her, as if seizing the words: one stormy night, a noble bull called Kala Nag (“black snake”) broke free of his ropes and galloped with Little Toomai on his back for miles and miles, to the legendary, mysterious bacchanal. There, the elephants partook of doum and marula, mgongo and palmyra, fermented fruits that made them drunk. And dance, they did! When the terrified, delirious boy returned at dawn to tell his tale, the hunters were skeptical until they finally went and found the place he’d described, in the heart of the jungle—a vast “ballroom” of trampled wood, with trails leading to and from and every which way. That night, in a very human celebration, Little Toomai was rechristened Toomai of the Elephants, and the magnificent brawny beasts raised their trunks, trumpeting in joy for the new King of Mahouts.
She read the opening verse aloud:
I will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain.
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugarcane…
I will go out until the day, until the morning break—out to
the winds’ untainted kiss, the waters’ clean caress—
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. I will
revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless!
SHE put on her “lucky” Schlumberger peas-in-the-
pod and parrot-and-feather Tiffany pins, plus a necklace she hadn’t worn in years made of tourmalines, peridot, and aquamarine stones. (They set off the fire of her wedding ring opal.) It crossed her mind that Cora might look through the window and see her wheeling
the suitcase she’d packed for New York; Marj wasn’t up for any explaining. In fact, she rather enjoyed the idea of Cora guessing her whereabouts. The mystery of it. The old woman smiled to herself, feeling like a double agent—a saboteur! It was very Graham Greene! She could always say she’d been to the elephants’ ball…but when she thought of Pahrump and how tough a time her neighbor had been having, Marj felt a little less “cock-of-the-walk” (an expression Hamilton liked to use). She scribbled a note saying she was on her way to La Quinta with her daughter and stuck it in Cora’s mailbox. The suitcase was small but the old woman had trouble lifting it to the trunk. She slid it into the backseat instead. She would get help once she got to the restaurant.
MARJ drove right past Spago. For a moment, she didn’t have a clue where she was. Why hadn’t she hitched a ride with Bonita? Dumb, dumb, dumb. She circled Rite Aid a few times before coming back around Wilshire to Cañon. There was sidewalk construction going on but then she saw the valets.
She felt glamorous making her entrance. The pretty Asian woman looked up “Mr Weyerhauser” then asked if the party might be under a different name. Marj said, as if intoning a password at the Magic Castle (she’d been to that place in the Hollywood Hills years ago, with Ham), “the Blind Sisters.” The hostess seemed puzzled but a confident Marj added, “It should be a large group.” The gal checked again, under “Weyerhauser” and “Herlihy” and “Blind Sisters,” but came up blank. She couldn’t remember Bonita’s last name, not that it made much sense that it would have been used for the reservation. She nearly blurted out “State of New York” and “lottery winners,” but thought that unwise. (It might even be illegal.)
