Gun, with Occasional Music

by Jonathan Lethem

  When I got into my car, I rolled down the window and sat there for a minute, the wind whistling through the grille and pushing a series of brittle leaves over the hood and away up into the hills. My mood was sour. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of a case where the only thing I had to go on was the different drugs the principals took. Reminded me too much of my life.

  I felt in my pocket for the new vial of make, just to be sure it was there. It was—and so was the packet of Blanketrol. I thought for a long, bleak minute about using it, and then I took it out and opened the car door and scattered it into the gutter.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE ADDRESS PHONEBLUM HAD GIVEN ME TURNED OUT TO be a house in the hills, and this house in particular had one hill all to itself. It was pretty impressive. But as I walked up to it in the darkness, I saw the luminous glow of holographic projectors on both sides of the pathway, and when I crossed the beam, the house dissipated into the night, to reveal a tin-roofed stairwell jutting out of the ground like a subway entrance. I turned the handle and opened the door. The steps were carpeted with orange Astro Turf, and there was illegible graffiti scrawled and then rubbed out on the walls. Phoneblum disappointed fast. I might have stopped and scrawled something myself, but I was already late for my appointment, and besides, I couldn't think of anything to write. Maybe on the way out.

  At the bottom of the steps was a harshly lit concrete floor. I could make out a shadow crossing back and forth in front of what must have been an unshaded bulb, nothing more. I went halfway down the steps, and a pair of feet came into view, peeking out from underneath some kind of table or desk. They tapped out a lackadaisical rhythm on the concrete. I went the rest of the way down the steps.

  The guy behind the desk couldn't have been more than fifty, but his face was all blossomed with red, as if his veins were working their way out of his skin in some sort of escape bid. Once I caught a whiff of his breath, I didn't blame them. The smell infiltrated my nose and started tugging on my nostril hairs. If this was Phoneblum, our conversation wasn't going to last very long, and if it wasn't, I understood why the guy had been retired to an underground desk. He wouldn't have been much use in the field: the breath was an unmistakable tattoo, the ultimate fingerprint. The guy smiled to let more of it out of the corners of his mouth, and I almost fainted. He looked pleased to see me, and when the gun muzzle bumped into my spine, I understood his confidence.

  The gun turned out to be attached to the kangaroo. He kept the nose of it pressed into my back while he worked over my pockets with his front paw. I lifted my arms and waited for him to finish. When he came to the pocket with the vial of make, he reached in and drew it out. I watched over my shoulder as he tried to read the label, his furry brow knit in concentration, his throat bobbing as he worked out the syllables subvocally. I grabbed it and slipped it back in my pocket to put him out of his misery.

  He pushed me forward with a thump on the shoulder and said: "He's clean." I think he was disappointed at not finding an excuse to kick me in the stomach.

  "Good," said the man at the desk, smiling again. "Take him down."

  The kangaroo put his hand on the back of my neck and guided me down the hallway and through a couple of doors and into a waiting elevator. We got in and turned around to face the door, ignoring each other like real passengers in a normal elevator—except for the gun in his hand. After his humiliation at the front of my apartment building, the kangaroo was pretending he didn't know me. It suited me fine.

  We sank slowly past a couple of levels and hit bottom with a grinding of gears and a rattle of chains. The door opened, and the kangaroo pushed me out into the living room of what had to be Phoneblum's hideaway.

  The place was mocked up to suggest the house that must once upon a time have existed on top, where now there was only the hologram. Antique furniture was arranged in a broad circle around an authentic-looking fireplace, and there were even logs piled to one side, so maybe it wasn't just for show. The ceiling was scrolled with ornate plasterwork, but I couldn't avoid the feeling that this was just an attentive detail on an old-time movie set. It was more thorough than most fakes, that's all. There were curtains, but I could see there weren't any windows behind them. If there had been windows, they would have opened onto dirt and earthworms, like a science-class diorama. It would have been interesting, but I guess it wasn't quite the effect they were after.

  "Put the gun away, Joey." Phoneblum—this time I was sure it was Phoneblum—entered the room through the bedroom doorway and stubbed out a cigar in an ashtray on the desk. When it was out, he held it to his nose and sniffed at it, then put it carefully alongside the ashtray. His fingers were fat but graceful—I reserved judgment on the rest of him. There must have been the skeleton of a colossus under that flesh, but if there was a bone or a sharp edge of any kind in him, I couldn't find it. He was wearing a shirt and pants but, stretched over that much bulk, they looked like a tarpaulin or sailcloth. There was an enormous sweater over that, and then a matching scarf around his neck to pin his white beard against his expansive chest. His forehead was high, but a plentiful thatch of hair rose up above it to sweep back over his skull, and his eyebrows were cocked intelligently above eyes that were nearly buried in flesh. Despite all this he carried himself with a kind of grace or vanity that contained within it a memory of something that once was: the suggestion of a young, thin man entombed inside this old, enormously fat one. "Go upstairs," he said to Joey, and the kangaroo went obediently back to the elevator. I stood staring. The fat man turned to me and smiled without malice. "Have a seat, Mr. Metcalf."

  I sat down in a chair and left the couch for Phoneblum. He'd need it. When the elevator closed on the kangaroo, the fat man moved to a position behind the couch and gripped the back of it with both hands, then tilted his bulk over it. His scarf tumbled loose across the cushions. "You say we have something to talk about," he said. His voice was deep and theatrical, with a quality of burnished wood, but the tone was neutral.

  "I keep turning corners and bumping into your kangaroo," I said. "That'll do for starters."

  "You are an inquisitor;"

  "That's right."

  "Do questions make you uncomfortable? I prefer to relax the conventional strictures."

  "Fine with me. Questions are my bread and butter."

  The fleshy pie of a face laughed. "Very good. And I'll help you to understand which side your questions are buttered on, and who it is that does the buttering. You see, I'm old enough, Mr. Metcalf, to remember a time when—ah, but you'll grow impatient if I allow myself to reminisce. Permit me to offer you a drink..."

  I nodded. He pushed his bulk away from the couch with surprisingly little effort, and opened a cabinet full of amber bottles and matching beveled glass tumblers. Without asking he poured me a glassful of what turned out to be scotch, and I took it without saying thank you. I sucked down about half of it while he settled himself into the couch.

  "Joey has an egotistical streak," he said, almost apologetically. "He doesn't mean any harm. He tries to please, and he's quite intelligent. I have to help him learn to curb his enthusiasm."

  "Where I come from, you don't teach puppets. You just pull their strings."

  "Oh! That's not fair to either of us, Mr. Metcalf. Joey's far more than a puppet, and I prefer to think of myself as something more subtle than a puppeteer. A catalyst, perhaps."

  He was a talker, in an age where talkers were few and far between. I was a talker myself, but I was a jaded professional. Phoneblum looked to have a hobbyist's passion for it.

  "I'm not really that interested in your opinion of yourself," I said. "You sent Joey to muscle me off the case. I've got a chipped tooth to show for it."

  "I would think that sort of thing was a part of your chosen profession."

  "It doesn't mean I have to like it. You want me off this case. Why?"

  "I don't care one way or another about the case. You were upsetting people I care for, and I asked you to stop."

&nbs
p; "People you care for. Who would that be?"

  "Dr. Testafer, Celeste Stanhunt, and the children at Cranberry Street."

  "There's only one child now at Cranberry Street, Phoneblum, and that's the kitten. The people you say you care for—it's the same bunch that turns white at the mention of your name."

  That slowed him down. His eyebrows knit together and then rose skeptically across the broad canvas of his forehead—they seemed to have developed compensatory powers of expression as the rest of his body grew blunt. He raised his drink and took a sip, drawing it out until he could think of a reply.

  "My life is complicated," he intoned. "The inquisition has taken my most cherished possessions from me. I live at cross-purposes to society. I do my best to maintain the fragile connections between what was and what is, but as often as not, the thread is broken..." He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.

  He was a ham. I was a method actor, but he was a ham. "Dr. Testafer called you a gangster," I said. "He's not so young—"

  "Dr. Testafer may not appreciate my benevolence," he interrupted angrily, "but rest assured, he lives his life out according to my good graces."

  I threw a curve ball. "I was up there tonight. Somebody butchered his sheep."

  Phoneblum looked momentarily startled. He stretched out and put his glass on the wooden arm of the couch.

  "Don't worry," I said. "They'll pin it on Angwine. It's made to order."

  "You lose a client," he said.

  "That's right. You may live at cross-purposes to the Office, but from where I stand you both look to benefit from Angwine's frame."

  "I've never even met Angwine."

  "You'll never get a chance to now. His time is up. You and the Office went to dinner and he's footing the bill."

  "Then what, if I might ask, is the purpose of continuing your inquisition?"

  "I'm restless. I think the frame is jerry-rigged. If I find the right nail to pry out, the whole thing'll come crashing down around your shoulders."

  "A beautiful image. I wish you luck. You don't seriously think the Office will entertain your suspicions for long, once they've closed the case themselves, do you? How good is your karma?"

  "My karma is none of your business. It'll hold out long enough."

  "Oh my." He picked up his drink again, and sighed philosophically—he was the kind who could do it. "You remind me of myself, once upon a time. We're not really that different even now. We chafe at our bits—but you're stubborn, inflexible. Stupid, finally. I've learned to compromise. In negotiation lies power, viability. Your inflexibility has rendered you marginal."

  "It isn't me who lives underground, Phoneblum."

  "That's it. Growl and nip. It's very frightening."

  "I didn't need to growl to frighten Celeste Stanhunt," I said. I wanted to bring, it back to the facts of the case, the clues, if they could be called that. "She was scared because she got me confused with one of your goons. What've you got on her?"

  "You misunderstand our relationship. I introduced Maynard Stanhunt to his future bride. You might say they were my creation. Celeste is very forgetful, but she owes me a great deal, and in her more lucid moments she'll acknowledge it."

  "Towards the end your creation wasn't doing so well. Stanhunt hired me to keep tabs on Celeste when she ran away to Cranberry Street."

  "Yes," he said darkly. "She is like that. We were always 'keeping tabs' on Celeste."

  "Is Pansy Greenleaf Celeste's girlfriend?"

  His eyebrows almost managed to tie themselves in a knot. "No, no. Nothing like that. A friend of the family."

  "Another one who lives her life out according to your good graces?"

  "As you wish."

  "Well, your graces aren't so good for our little friend Pansy. I found her nodding out on illegal make, taking it in the arm. Something called Blanketrol, for people who aren't satisfied just to forget. According to a maker I talked to, Pansy is scooping out the insides of her head like a Halloween pumpkin."

  "Her brother committed a murder. I understand why she might want—"

  "Yeah," I said, cutting him off. "Who supplied her with the stuff?"

  "Are you accusing me of something?"

  "As you wish."

  He smiled and took another sip from his drink. I took the opportunity to lean back and breathe slowly. I needed it I wasn't accustomed to the questions going in both directions. Plus I felt a little hemmed in here, in Phoneblum's underground house. I thought about the kangaroo and the man with the breath waiting in their brightly lit concrete bunker, and I wondered if it would be as easy getting out of this hole as it had been getting in.

  "I don't even use make," said Phoneblum after swallowing the gulp of scotch. "Let alone distribute it. I've known about Pansy's indiscretions for years, and it's very distressing to hear she's taken up the needle, but I've learned I'm powerless to stop it. Are you a user? I've never understood it, myself."

  "I've got a blend for when I need it." I cursed myself silently for the defensive way it came out.

  "The Office and the makery—they're one and the same to me," he said. "Make is a tool for controlling great masses of people. It homogenizes their response to repression, don't you think? You consider yourself an outsider, a seeker of truth amidst lies, yet you've bought into the biggest lie that can be told. You snort that lie through your nose and let it run in your bloodstream."

  "Fuck you."

  "Woof."

  "Let's get back to specifics," I said. Control of the conversation kept reeling away from me. Phoneblum had actually reminded me that I could use a line or two of my blend, but I didn't see anywhere handy to spread it out. "You've known Pansy for a couple of years. Who fathered the kid?"

  "I have no idea," he said.

  "Who paid for the house? That's a pretty nice neighborhood."

  He sighed again. "You're forcing me into some uncomfortable revelations, Mr. Metcalf. Pansy Greenleaf worked for me once. I helped her acquire the Cranberry Street property two and a half years ago."

  "Two and a half years ago. The same time Celeste married Stanhunt"

  "Is that true? How interesting."

  "Yeah. Interesting. Were Celeste and Pansy friends back then?"

  "I recommended Pansy for a job in Maynard's office," Phoneblum explained. It started to smack of improvisation, but his verbal skills were bridging the gaps in logic. "It didn't work out, but the women remained friends."

  "A few years ago that wasn't Maynard Stanhunt's office," I reminded him. "It belonged to Dr. Testafer. I guess you helped with the transition."

  "Indeed."

  "Why your interest in the practice? What was in it for you?"

  "I have need of doctors," he said. I waited for him to continue but he didn't.

  I finished my drink and put the empty glass on the floor between my feet and his. "You mentioned another detective who warned off better than I did."

  "After you refused Maynard your services, he turned to me to arrange for someone to 'keep tabs,' as you said, on Celeste. I hired another man to pick up where you left off. Maynard left it to me—after his bad experience with you he didn't want to meet the new fellow, and I obliged him in that."

  "What's his name?"

  "I have a feeling you want to go and bother the man."

  "That's right."'

  "He didn't last long, you know. He was fired six days before the murder."

  "Great. What's his name?"

  The big man chuckled. "What would be my motive for telling you that?"

  "Simple. I'll find out one way or another. Either you tell me or I bother your loved ones about it."

  "Very well. There's something I like about letting you go on thinking your threats are effective with me. I suppose I admire your bluster. His name is Walter Surface. But you'll find he knows nothing."

  "I'm still interested. Who watched Celeste after Surface?"

  "After two failures I was able to convince Maynard of the futility of outside surveillance. He req
uested that my staff keep an eye on Celeste, and I agreed. That was the end of it."

  "Was anyone shadowing her at the time of the murder?"

  Phoneblum's face clouded. I'd stumbled onto something, but I didn't know what. He puffed up his cheeks and then let them slacken like a rubber bellows. His free hand stroked his beard while his forehead enacted its ritual dance. "Unfortunately, no," he said softly. "We have no record of her whereabouts."

  Had Celeste done the killing, after all? And was Phoneblum trying to cover for her?

  It seemed wrong, but I didn't know what seemed righter. "What was Stanhunt doing in the Bayview Motel?" I asked.

  "If only I knew."

  "Were you ever questioned by the Office? You're in this up to your neck."

  "The Office doesn't question me," he said in a flat tone. I guess he was just being honest. He seemed to have fallen into an introspective, distracted mood. "Besides, my hands are clean. That must be evident even to you."

  "The Office doesn't seem to bother you—yet on the phone you jumped at the mention of Morgenlander. What makes him different?"

  "Morgenlander is an outsider. He's a crusader, and he's unwelcome."

  "You contradict yourself, Phoneblum. The Office is your friend or it isn't. You can't have it both ways."

  "The Office and I have arrived at an understanding. An iconoclast like Morgenlander is a threat to stability. He pokes around at things that don't require his attention. Like you."

  "Thanks. I felt an instant affinity with the guy when he smacked me in the mouth."

  "You're quite a complainer, Mr. Metcalf. I should think you take such things in stride by now."

  Trying to think of an answer just made me feel tired. I picked up my glass and got out of the chain.

  "I'm sorry," said Phoneblum. "I should have offered you a second."

  "No, but thanks no. I'm drinking on an empty stomach." I put my glass in the cabinet with the bottles and wiped the condensation from my hands on the seat of my pants. "I guess I'll stop bothering you. Thanks for your time."