The Royal Family

by William T. Vollmann

  Do you believe I’m dangerous?

  The Queen shot him a bitter glare.

  Well?

  I believe you’re not a nice man. I believe you’re volatile. I don’t really want to listen to your proposition.

  Oh, so I pushed you over the edge, laughed Brady, pleased with himself. Okay, let me be nice to you again.

  And he was. It didn’t take long—a little more money, and he had the bitch eating out of his hand! Everybody’s the same, he thought. Feed ’em or punch ’em. Then you’ll get whatever you need. But this one stinks. She’s not smart enough to be Queen. This is a setup. This is a flunkey switch. I should send her back happy, but you know what, God? You know fucking what? I won’t.

  You get out much, ma’am? he said.

  You know, said the tipsy woman, I used to go to Land’s End a lot. Just to kinda watch the fog. (I like this wine. This wine has a lot of class.) It was, well, I don’t know exactly—so lovely like the inside of those seashells you can find sometimes all silvery and shimmery—mother-of-pearl, that’s the word I was trying to remember. My memory’s not so good now. But all those trees, they just stood there, so tall and dark and kind of solid against that fog. If it started to rain, they’d protect me. But if it kept on raining, then after a while they let that rain through. I guess that’s how it is, huh? Nothing can protect you forever.

  Well, by all means let’s go out to Land’s End, said Brady.

  He ushered her back into his rental car and began to drive slowly down Geary Street, weaving. A cop waved them down.

  Don’t I know you? the cop said to the Queen.

  No, officer, you don’t know me.

  It sounds like the Queen, Brady mumbled. It sounds like her. That’s the kicker. That’s just what the Queen would say.

  Let’s see your license, the cop said to Brady.

  Brady worked his wallet out from up against his fat buttock and handed it to the cop, money and all. —Help yourself, he said.

  The cop fiddled with the wallet until he found the license. —Out of state, huh? And who’s the lady?

  My Queen.

  I oughta send you to jail for twenty days for driving under the influence, said the cop. I can smell it on your breath.

  Sure it’s on my breath, said Brady. Doesn’t mean I’m drunk, though.

  The cop said: I should have you take a sobriety test. I should have you walk the white line.

  Go ahead, said Brady. I still got three legs.

  The cop laughed. —Get out of here, he said. Don’t let me catch you driving like that again. Have a nice stay in San Francisco.

  Thank you, officer, said Brady. Rolling up the window, he uttered a magnificent Bronx cheer.

  The woman was very quiet beside him on that almost fogless afternoon, all the buildings in focus beneath the smoky yellow sky. There was an Asian wedding by the Exploratorium; the bride appeared chilly in her fluttering gown.

  They came to Land’s End and parked. Trees were groping and reaching, shaking like a handful of darkdyed peacock plumes tied together and whirled in a crazy boy’s hand. Brady got out and led the unresisting woman into the bushes. They gazed down at the sea for a while. Then he put his arm around her and whispered into her ear: Hey, baby, I don’t believe you’re the Queen.

  The woman stiffened. —Why, you motherfucker! That’s the second time you’ve insulted me. You called me a liar, didn’t you? You think I’m lying?

  Brady kissed her neck. —Yes, I do.

  Smiling tenderly, he pulled out his Para-Ordnance P-12, cocked the hammer, and put the barrel to the spot on her throat that he had kissed. —You know, it has a grip safety, he said. Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp . . . That’s Invisible Empire talk. That’s Klan talk, baby. If I don’t actually squeeze the grip, it won’t shoot, even when I pull the trigger. See?

  Don’t, the woman whispered.

  Now I know you’re not the Queen. The Queen would never beg before me like that.

  He ground the barrel hard against her larynx and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Withdrawing the gun from the sagging woman, he pulled the slide back and thumbed the magazine release. —You see, it’s empty. Do you know why, nigger? ’Cause carrying a concealed weapon is a felony. Hah!

  From his pocket he took out another clip, this one loaded with hollowpoints. He clicked it firmly in with the heel of his hand, and forefingered the slide release so that the slide suddenly lunged forward with a steely slamming noise.

  Now let’s try that grip safety, he said.

  He put the gun to the woman’s head again. The hammer had remained cocked. With his hand not touching the back of the grip, he began very slowly to squeeze the trigger.

  What do you want me to prove? she wailed. How am I supposed to prove that? You either believe me or you don’t. Oh, I was such a fool. I’d started to trust you. I thought you were a nice guy.

  And when you tell me you’re the Queen, are you just saying you’re the Queen or are you lying to me?

  What kind of a choice is that? I told you I’m the Queen because I’m the Queen.

  Okay, here come two joggers. I’m going to put my arm around you and you’re going to put your head on my shoulder like this so that nobody can see the gun. If you scream, I’ll kill you. Do you believe me?

  Please . . . please . . . What do you want me to do? I can give really good head.

  Calls herself the Queen, said Brady in disgust, shoving her down in the mud and kicking her. The joggers were very close now. They were a young couple, spoiled and athletic from the look of them, with expensive running shoes and tinted sunglasses. The woman looked shocked and started to say something, so Brady flashed the gun, put on his most menacing expression and snarled: Keep moving, cunt!

  Come on, Tracy, said the husband, let’s get out of here.

  Okay, said Brady to the sobbing prostitute underfoot. He turned her over with a kick and stepped on her breast, pointing the gun down at her. —This is your only chance, nigger, he said. Where’s the Queen?

  In—in the garage . . .

  Which garage?

  The one . . . the same one—

  Where we found you?

  Yes—

  And she’s waiting for you to report in?

  Yes . . . I didn’t . . . If you let me go I won’t tell . . .

  All right then. Stand up, nigger. Goddamned fucking puke-faced muddy bitch Queen of the Whores, Queen of Scum . . . Now I’m going to hit you in the stomach. If you scream you’re dead. I’m going to put you in the hospital, bitch. I’m going to break a couple ribs. You know why? Because your Queen tried to Jew me down, and you lied to me.

  | 43 |

  Having cooled down, body and soul, Brady achieved the conclusion that Tyler had not betrayed him. Shoddy work, to be sure, but not dishonest—thus the boss’s conclusion; for Tyler had never testified under oath that this woman (toward whose blackness Brady admitted to have been predisposed) was definitely the Queen. Shit happens, thought original Brady. He eased himself into the rental car, opened the glove compartment, and cross-checked some receipts that Tyler had given him, pounding the calculator with his stubby fingers until he was soothed. All Tyler’s numbers were correct, he was happy to say. He knew the sonofabitch was robbing him but that was okay as long as he didn’t get too sloppy or greedy about it; such was the prime rule. Here was a manila envelope full of surveillance forms, too. Brady pulled one sheet out of the middle of the pile, skimmed it, grunted, and then took the whole stack and threw them into a garbage can. That put him in fine spirits. He eased his rental car out of there and turned back east onto Geary Street, passing the Chinese seafood restaurant with painted dragons on the walls and then Joe’s ice cream parlor, where he had never been, flashed square and white in his sideview mirror; here came the Korean barbeque joints and the Korean restaurants. Geary Street was wide, characterless, and full of traffic. At Stanyan Street the big road opened up further, letting in windy brightness. He wormed through the squat
short tunnel with daylight in narrow truncated pyramids upon its tiles, rolled down the slope to Divisadero, did not read the graffiti on the bricks of the middle school, dipped under the next bridge and yawned at the astrological signs of Japantown—crab, mandala, elephant—and then rolled up the last hill whose ugly vertebral columns of apartments along the Gough Street ridge offered strategic Tenderloin views; down the curve of Starr King to Van Ness he went, and suddenly he was in the narrow canyon of old badlands which constituted the Tenderloin. Here glowed the rain forest mural on the side wall of the Mitchell Brothers theater where world-famed Will McMaster had once pissed in one corner of the Ultra Room; here stood the Iroquois Hotel where Tyler had once stayed for a week between jobs; here grew the bricks, fire escapes and Vietnamese restaurants of the kingdom. Tyler would have shot a glance down Leavenworth, which was sunny and empty, the grating retracted on liquor stores; as for Brady, he was too busy. As usual, the Queen’s parking garage offered vacancies. Up the slanting alimentary tract to the third floor he drove, mad as hell. There was the grating that Tyler had shown him, double-locked, with darkness behind it. —He shook it like an orangutan in a cage and yelled: Hey you, bitch!

  The Queen did not answer.

  He kicked the grating one more time, then laughed.

  Tyler says we’re already burned, he shouted. Tyler says you know us. Well, I don’t give a shit! You get the hint?

  He opened the trunk, dumped the half-dead woman out. Her flesh slapped liquidly against the concrete. She lay still.

  In the basement the ceiling was low enough to touch, everything humming and echoing, piss and oil and gasoline on the concrete whose painted arrows lay like frozen missiles at the mouths of downramps in this gilded gloom. He heard voices everywhere, unintelligibly pulsing. At last he realized that they were coming through the pipes. Khrushchev-inspired, he took one of his shoes off and banged it against the nearest conduit: Going, goiiinnnnng! The voices stopped.

  Again he laughed.

  A mesh gate gave onto the utility room, which was crusted with white flakes, as of battery acid residue. Pipes like metallic mushrooms clung in rows to the walls. Here a skinny old wino sat looking at him with intelligent eyes and finally said: Are you feeling hard and mean?

  I beg your pardon? said Brady.

  I said, are you feeling hard and mean?

  I’m looking for the Queen, said Brady on impulse.

  The man’s face opened and shone. —Her name’s Gloria, he said. She is the shining sea of Gloria Gloria Gloria.

  What’s your name, sir? said Brady, amused.

  Jimmy.

  I thought her name was Vanna, said a wide-eyed moonfaced young fellow with glasses who kept wiping at his forehead. God, my balls hurt.

  Get a job, son, said Brady. What are you two doing in there?

  Getting drunk on his money, said old Jimmy with a laugh. He’s doin’ some article on me for the newspaper . . .

  Well, I’ll leave you to it. Get emotionally compromised if you want. I don’t have time for your foolishness.

  If a fool and his money are soon parted, then why am I a millionaire? cackled the old wino.

  Brady shrugged and, ticket in hand, strode back to the bright wide realm of that parking garage where adjoining x’es and incandescent tubes like giant paperclips bounced cleanliness off polished tiles, the floor slippery as if from some secretion bubbling up from underneath. A spectacled man bowed inside his glass booth. An LED display brightened his window.

  As pretty as Christmas! Brady shouted, knocking on the glass.

  Gazing round, he saw that this was even truer than he had supposed, for murals of nature lived upon the walls. Did the Mitchell Brothers own this place, too, or was nature’s sentimentalization a fad in the Tenderloin? The cashier still had not responded to his signal.

  He knocked again on the glass, harder, and the man frowned, pulled off a pair of earphones, and waited.

  Where’s the Queen? shouted Brady into the glass.

  Maybe the guy couldn’t speak English. Shifting his polymath gears, Brady bellowed:

  Donday esta el Raino?

  | 44 |

  Irene had an accident with John’s car and asked Tyler to take the blame, because she was scared. It was not a bad accident, just a paint-scraper, a mirror-breaker. Tyler called John at work, told him that Irene had let him borrow the car while his was in the shop, and that he had scraped a power pole. He promised to pay the repair cost. John laughed tolerantly and the whole thing was no problem. That having been resolved, Tyler phoned Irene to give her a report.

  Thank you, she said. I love you.

  Love you, too, he said. What did you do the rest of the day?

  I stayed in bed. I was depressed at having to ask you.

  | 45 |

  On Monday John had to go to Cleveland for a week for a business trip. Irene had said that she would come over on Wednesday to do their laundry because the washing machine in Tyler’s apartment was free, but Tuesday night she said that she wasn’t coming. Tyler had a terrible headache right then; he really wasn’t feeling well. So he didn’t try to argue with her. He just said: Well, honey, I’m sorry you’re not coming. I’ll see you next time.

  But on Wednesday afternoon he discovered that he had been missing her all day, so he called her up. He was going to ask how she was, but by the time her telephone began to ring he’d decided that that was too forward, so when she answered on the third ring he just said: Hello, Irene. I was going to be driving through your neighborhood and I wondered if you needed me to bring anything.

  Nothing that I can think of, said Irene so sweetly. But thank you for asking. How have you been?

  OK, he said, already bored with the conversation. What are you doing right now?

  Nothing. Watching TV.

  He wanted to say: Well, why don’t you come over, then, sweetheart?

  What’s the program about?

  I guess it’s a thriller. I don’t know what it is. Somebody is killing somebody.

  Oh, he said. That sounds good. Well, I’ll let you get back to it.

  | 46 |

  What was wrong with him? He felt so peculiar and perplexed. As soon as he hung up he wanted to call Irene back again and he knew that he couldn’t. He actually lifted the receiver and depressed the numbered white studs, desperate to tell her: I just wanted to hear your voice. —But he left the last digit unpushed, and after a moment sighed and put the phone back to bed. —You know, I had this dream, he wanted to say to her. You and I were walking in a cornfield, and you had on this beautiful long white dress and you were holding my hand and smiling at me. And then you . . . —He had not had any dream of the kind. He could scarcely understand his own emotions, his almost invincible desire to invent this absurd lie. Irene would have been silent, he supposed, and then he would have gone on: You . . . I made you happy . . . —He waited a week, and then invited her out for lunch. She said she was depressed and didn’t have the energy to leave the house; would tomorrow be all right? He was busy tomorrow, but the next day she picked him up at home, since she was out in her car anyway doing errands, and they went to one of the Korean barbecue places on Geary Street. He asked her if she wanted a beer, and she hesitated and agreed. He ordered one apiece.

  So how are you doing? he said finally.

  Oh, you know how it is, she said. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  Do you feel the baby yet?

  I feel something. I don’t know if it’s the baby or not.

  You look so sad, he said. What’s wrong, honey? Please tell me what the matter is.

  You know what the matter is, said Irene. That’s all I ever talk about. I’m sorry . . .

  There was a black cat on the window-seat, basking—a creature of great elegance and self-assurance which presently began to purr in the soft low buzz of an electric razor. Irene smiled at it and made kissing sounds, but it ignored her.

  Did you have pets when you were a kid? said Tyler.

  Irene nodd
ed, her glass at her lips. The waitress had begun to unload the usual immense appetizer tray of kimchees white and red, pickled fish, dried fish, seaweed soup, miso paste. Irene set her glass down, took her chopsticks from the paper envelope, and began to grate them back and forth against each other in case there might be splinters. The cat went on purring.

  And how’s work for you? asked Irene.

  Slow. Still looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found. You had cats, you said?

  She nodded again, listlessly. Then she took her chopstick wrapper and began twisting it, teeth sinking ruthlessly into her lower lip as she stared aimlessly about, spurious, objectless copy of some fighting-girl on speed who rushed back and forth along Valencia Street, looking for the two girls she had beaten because she lusted to beat them again. Irene, of course, was not the fighting kind.

  John and I always had dogs, Tyler said. Sheep dogs, border collies, you know . . .

  How’s Mugsy?

  I don’t know. I didn’t ask Mom . . .

  I always had bad luck with cats and I love them so much, said Irene. In Korea we had one cat, and when he was hardly more than a baby he went out one night and I guess he must have found some poison. Maybe rat poison. He came into the house real early in the morning, throwing up blood and this horrible yellow stuff, and he was in convulsions. I guess he came home because he thought we could save him. With cats and dogs, one of the most amazing things about them is the way they get to trust you. You can do anything to them, even if it hurts, because they know you love them and are trying to do the best thing for them. And that cat—I said he was our cat, but really he was my cat; he loved me the best, and I loved him—well, Henry, he kept looking into my eyes. He was rolling around on the rug and screaming and whenever he caught his breath he kept looking into my face ’cause he believed in me. He was sure I could do something. I took him to the vet before school. I was actually a little late for school. And I was nervous about that, ’cause I’d never been late before. I wasn’t a good girl in school that day. I kept crying and praying. And I just ran home. I asked my grandmother if the vet had been able to fix my cat, and she said, no, they couldn’t fix him. Because the intestines were all torn. The vet buried him.