by Todd Grimson
“Come on, he can’t be so ridiculous that he can’t just do some straight-up business now and then.”
“Yeah, I guess he does get things done. You know, for a while I had the patent on a new kind of mouse. I bought it from some kid at USC.”
“So where are all your mice?”
“Well, I’ve got to look that kid up sometime, get him to clone me some more. They were doing fine, then we got a new microwave …”
“Honey, you don’t know for sure that’s what did it,” Joey said, her voice showing evidence of time with a speech therapist. A voice can be low and still sound feminine—it’s the delivery that counts.
“Anyway, it was depressing to see all those dead mice. OK. Maybe Boro will just fill your order and that’ll be it. I know he does a lot of nice jobs for the Laotians and Cambodians. Let me draw you a map.”
SIX
Boro was so ugly he was distinctive, not ugly-handsome but certainly memorable, with long dreadlocks and all kinds of tattoos all over his
body, symbols and signs rather than screaming skulls or lions or names. He had a motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson low-rider, and there were six other bikers hanging around with him, keeping their distance, strange dudes, moving very slowly, very slowly, not saying a word.
His teeth, when he smiled, looked like dentures; he wore a braided vest, no shirt, a little leather bag hung from a string around his neck. He had on very old dirty jeans and beat-up black boots. He was sitting on a sawed-in-half oil drum with a woven reed seat, as if waiting for Lisa, expecting her, the motorcycles parked near him in this odd, dusty hollow, while a ways back there was a bright green Astroturf lawn and a brightly painted green and red house, surrounded by artificial bushes, plants and flowers, as well as some blossoms and growths that seemed to be real. There was a cat that was really a sculpture, welded out of stainless steel, and what looked to be a mechanical facsimile of a big black dog.
Lisa was a little tired, and there was no way she could possibly make it to see Jerry Dolphin. Oh well, so what. She was curious but wary, keeping her sunglasses on as Boro said, “When were you born?”
She told him, and he wanted then to know the time of day. Although in obvious ways he was sort of a repulsive variety of being, she found him not without an odd little spark of charm.
“Who sent you? Are you from the government?”
“No,” Lisa said. “I’m here because I’ve heard … you can do things. I want to pay you—to do something to somebody for me.”
“Ah, cast a spell. You’re a jilted, jealous lover.”
“No. I was cheated by someone. He promised me a job, a job I really wanted, and so I did things for him, but he gave it to someone else. He lied to me.”
“You prostituted yourself.”
“Yeah, I did,” Lisa said, his eyes or charisma or something indefinable making her not want to mince words.
“Your brother’s a violinist,” Boro said, lighting a cigarette, lean muscular dark golden-brown arms cording, tendons flexing, a silver engraved band on one wrist, tight little Indian beads and leather on the left. His face was clean-shaven.
Lisa nodded, sitting on a wooden crate near him, not even wondering how he knew. Her brother, Track de la Nova, was well known in certain avant-garde circles. He was brilliant, with a huge ego, a shit. She loved him dearly, even if she could hardly stand him most of the time.
Boro said, “Your oppressor—I need some of his pubic hairs to start the spell. You want minor irritation or the whole works?”
“The whole works.”
“Yes, I thought you would.” He smiled, and she thought that he liked her. This was all so weird, she was in it and she couldn’t imagine being outside, coolly civilized, objective, in an office or at a screening, any of that again. She had taken her sunglasses off and was thirsty. She licked her upper lip, and Boro snapped his fingers at one of his gang, saying something in an unfamiliar language. The fellow went into the house and came back, still walking slowly and stiffly, somnambulently, with two cold bottles of an imported soft drink.
Guarana. Made from a rain forest berry. Something vanilla and different. It tasted good.
“I’ll do his whole family,” Boro said, introspectively. “That’s what I feel like. Is that OK?”
“Sure,” she said. Already things seemed slightly out of control. She was playing tough to please him, to play at being what she sensed he wanted her to be. But it seemed fun, a goof.
He laughed. “I like women who can be cruel. We’ll get along. What do you want to pay me?”
“Money,” Lisa said.
Smiling, holding his guarana bottle in one hand, Boro strolled over to his nearby chopper and unhooked a leather bag, bringing it back to where she sat. He opened it up and carelessly spilled out the contents onto the dusty ground in front of her. Shrunken heads, with sewn-up eyes and mouths, long hair. They looked real. One was female, with blond hair.
“Hey, Pierre,” Boro called, tossing down the bag. The fellow who’d brought the carbonated beverages returned, expressionless, his eyes unblinking, terrifically pale, filthy, patches of his skin sort of bluish, clad in jeans and an ancient, tattered T-shirt, kneeling down to put the heads back in the bag. Lisa felt sickened, though afraid to show her disgust. Boro put his arm around her shoulders as she stood up. He smelled strongly of bitter chocolate, something like chili peppers, and deep, dark earth. “Come back tomorrow night.”
There were several messages on Lisa’s answering machine. Toni, Jerry Dolphin’s assistant, had called to say Jerry couldn’t make it, something came up, but he would still like to meet with her and she should give his office a call.
“Fuck you,” Lisa said without passion, eating take-out black-bean salad from a little carton with a white plastic fork.
“Hi, this is Adrian … I heard about Alison Hand getting to be the assistant for Popcorn. What a drag. Call me if you feel like it.” Adrian Gee, whose pleasantly modulated, unmistakably gay voice cheered her up a little, just hearing it. He was a freelance writer, doing pretty well, writing on fashion, films, celebrities, whatever, for the upscale slicks. He knew all the gossip and was endlessly supportive: a good friend, but she didn’t think she’d call him tonight.
Christine: “Some film festival up in Seattle wants to feature Girl, 10, Murders Boys, and they want us to be there and introduce it, take questions and be on a panel. They probably haven’t seen it … I don’t know. Bye.”
Then another beep, and a male voice Lisa almost recognized— there was something familiar about it, the confidence—said, “We don’t know each other, but I’ve seen you … and you’d probably recognize me. I’d really like to meet you, I think we could have some serious fun together, I see possibilities in you I haven’t seen in anybody for a long time. I want to see if you taste as good as you look. No, forgive me. I’ll be waiting for you. Put the wheels in motion. If you need money, I’ve got money I don’t know what to do with … I hope that you’ll call.”
Who was it? It sounded very much like Roy Hardway. That face … she could see it, match it with the voice; she rewound and listened to the message once more. It was too weird. Wasn’t he supposed to be fucking Trish Featherstone?
There was one more message: Code, saying, “Hey, I’m here, gimme a call. Let me know what’s going on.”
She didn’t call anyone. There was an ad she had seen once, someone had pointed it out to her as amusing, or unique, existential, years ago in New York. In black and white, the shot was from above the navel to midthigh, the thighs parted but not so far as to make the vulva gape; the dark pubic hair formed a neat triangle, not really hiding the labia … the notable thing was the message: I Exist A phone number below. And that was all. Lisa remembered it very well. The others had had full-body poses, with faces, explicit promises of dirty deeds. I Exist. This is my cunt.
Lisa took a shower. Once dry, she sat down on her bed with her legs stretched out. Her slightly cross-eyed Burmese cat, Casimir, came to he
r, wanting some attention, to be petted and massaged.
Caz was careful with his claws when she was naked, he knew the difference; he lay now on her thighs, stretching out, purring, adjusting himself to fit. She lightly caressed his back, down to his tail. She was thinking. She had a semblance of a plan. There, in her bed, she picked up the phone from the nightstand and dialed Code. When he didn’t answer after three rings, she hung up just as his machine was about to come on. She’d get him later. She wanted to talk to Christine, but Christine would be able to tell from her voice that stuff was going on.
Lisa sort of wanted to play the piano, as doing so sometimes induced a meditative state that calmed her and wiped her mind clean—but right now she didn’t want to move Casimir. She closed her eyes. No, she definitely didn’t want to speak to any more progressive cinema aficionados, that was out. There was nothing to gain. She never thought about that project anymore. She wanted to go forward. Maybe, if it really was Roy Hardway, she should fuck him, or pee on him, satisfy whatever creepy or semicreepy desires he had. It was hard to know what was the correct and gainful move.
After some time Caz roused himself, stretching and yawning, going off to attend to some feline errands, check his bowl, and Lisa got up, also yawning, reaching up as if to touch the ceiling above. She had had plenty of piano lessons but no great talent; still, it had been fun to accompany Track until he got too good. She enjoyed the tactile sense of her fingers on the keys. The dexterity that had been arduously drilled into her had a memory of its own, in her hands, independent of her conscious mind. She played softly, halfway to Debussy, somewhere near easy Poulenc.
Just before midnight she called Code. She told him she needed a favor, and decribed it to him. He had to call her back. It took about twenty minutes, but then he said it was all set up.
“What’s this all about?”
“Trust me.”
He just laughed. “You too,” he said, and laughed some more.
SEVEN
In her dream, she was high on a cliff above a beach and ocean she’d never seen in real life, blue sky and panoramic view as if the Andes were right next to the sea, she was at a tremendous height, it was beautiful, she was in awe … but then things changed, and she was in her own apartment. Looking at the Turkish rug in the living room, which her father had purchased in Ankara. She lifted up this rug and found a trapdoor. She opened it and saw wooden stairs, leading down to where? To what? She was afraid, but also rather excited, adventurous … she turned her head and saw a row of skulls across the closed piano lid. The room was lit by candles, it was different, it had changed, and now her first wish was to escape. A huge scimitar was raised up, ready to flash down in an instant—
She awoke. She was sweating, her pulse was racing. Her cat, who usually slept all tangled up with her, was down at the foot of the bed, sitting in an Egyptian position, observing her with half-open eyes. When she started to speak to him, he turned and jumped off the bed.
The worst part of the dream was the trapdoor. It was ridiculous, but she had to check, make sure it was not there under the rug.
EIGHT
OK. Reality, so to speak.
There needed to be at least one man about forty, and as it turned out, Lisa got two in that range. Code introduced them to her as Ralph and James. They were actors, struggling actors. Code drove them all in the borrowed van. He didn’t know what it was all about, but he was enthusiastic. James and Ralph seemed more dubious, and Ralph gave indications of not thinking fifty bucks apiece was enough. They were types. Lisa didn’t recognize them, but they had actors’ voices, presence of a sort. She was hopeful they’d be fine. They wore suits and ties. Lisa, meanwhile, had on black-rimmed prop eyeglasses and the most unassuming dress and shoes she had been able to find.
It was early for Code. Anything before two or three in the afternoon was too soon for him to be up, but here he was. Lisa appreciated his help. James seemed oblivious and obedient, but Ralph had to
be reassured several times that she was not going to steal anything; he kept trying to figure out the appropriate potential legalese. Impersonation of federal officers. Were immigration agents really federal officers? Lisa said, for no particular reason, “I think that’s just the Secret Service, or the FBI.” Icy silence, then Ralph went on: unlawful entry, criminal trespass, what else? He asked James, but James just shrugged.
The routine of the household was pretty familiar to Lisa. To make sure none of the family was home now, Code had called and asked to speak to Veronica (Lou’s wife); and then, claiming to be a cousin from Connecticut (they did exist), to the son, Jonathan. No, Mrs. Gonzales said, she could take a message, but no one would be available until later in the day.
Flashing a phony badge, Ralph led the way. As soon as Mrs. Gonzales answered the door she was cooked. They all came inside. Ralph’s irritable, overbearing manner was perfect, he said they were from immigration and had a report some Salvadorans were in the house. Lisa knew that Mrs. Gonzales’s English was not so good, it had its limits; her nineteen-year-old daughter’s was better, but she was very timid and shy. They were going to search the house, Ralph said severely, and Mrs. Gonzales protested, concentrating on Ralph, while James went upstairs and Lisa slipped away down the hall. It would be Ralph’s job to keep the woman away from a telephone until they were ready to leave. Code stayed out in the van, keeping the motor running, ready to honk if anyone drove in.
Lou was at the studio; Veronica was most likely at the gallery she owned on La Brea, near Melrose. Maybe Veronica didn’t like to give her husband blowjobs anymore (Lisa had this impression) but for someone in her mid-forties or so, she didn’t look too bad. Ash blond hair (no doubt to solve the problem of gray), maybe or maybe not a little eyelid work with the surgeon’s scalpel, Lou never said—Lisa didn’t have enough status to be the recipient of such confidences, because of her position, the very fact she was trying to make it, as well as her youth. Veronica went to some kind of trainer, or a personal trainer visited her, Lisa wasn’t sure. Was Veronica intelligent, given her interest in art? What did that mean?
Jonathan, twenty-four, lived in Glendale, back from a year in France.
The other offspring, Celia, was herself away in Israel on some fellowship, maybe working on a kibbutz, planning to write a paper about it when she was done. Lou had never talked about his children much.
Lisa knew that Lou kept the door to his study locked. That was where he read scripts late at night, or watched films on his VCR, if he felt like doing such a thing (new product, of course, he had screened on the lot). Lisa had come here once and fucked him while the Gonzales mother and daughter (the husband was dead) attended a wedding somewhere. Veronica had been out of town as well.
Code had called someone today, at the last minute, and come up with a skeleton key. He said it would open seventy-five percent of known locks. This one stuck a little, and Lisa had a cold moment of panic, but then it found its purchase, and she opened the door. The big leather couch in here folded out into a bed. Lou slept here sometimes, and Lisa didn’t think that the sheets were necessarily changed as often as those in the rest of the house.
Yes, there were some pubic hairs in the fold-out bed. Lisa didn’t think any of them could be hers—the Saturday she’d been here was a long time ago, or it seemed like it—but, just to be on the safe side, she examined each one before putting it into the envelope, making sure she selected only coils tinged with gray.
NINE
After dropping off James and Ralph, in that order—at the last moment Ralph blackmailed Lisa for twenty dollars more, saying he knew who lived there and who she was, that he’d call anonymously and inform on her—”You’re an asshole, man,” said Code, but Lisa paid him—and after returning the van to its owner, Code running back from dropping off the keys, smiling, blond hair that’s really golden, all kinds of shades of gold … they stopped by Lisa’s apartment and she changed her clothes, she put on some light earth-tone makeup, a little brown eyeshado
w and dark brown mascara, bright fresh blood semimatte lipstick, wooden jewelry, and a sleeveless short linen tank dress, with bare legs and thong-style sandals … and then, with Lisa still insisting that all she’d done was collect a personal item in order to put a spell on old Lou, a story that Code politely disbelieved, they went to a restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard at Sepulveda. After they’d been seated and had their
menus, it was two-thirty in the afternoon by now, Code said, “I wish things were simpler. Remember when we were in Jamaica? If we’re still around by the time we’re thirty, if we’re still just fucking around by then, you and I should get married … I know what you’re thinking, but I’m careful, you can get a blood test on me anytime you want. Now tell me, are you serious? You mean this shit about casting a spell?”
Lisa shrugged. She had felt sort of romantic when he’d mentioned marriage—not that she’d ever do it, not with him, he was too unde-pendable—and she wanted to enjoy the little shiver of sentimentality and regret, which probably wouldn’t have been so poignant if they were still having sex together. He was smart, she liked his music; they could talk about things. He shared some of her anticinema, antistar-dom, anticelebrity feelings, yet they were both trying to make it; she had once thought she was purer but, as it turned out, she was undoubtedly worse.
“I was in a commercial with Ralph and James,” said Code after a few moments. They were sharing Vietnamese food: Lisa was especially interested in a piece of fried fish with a spicy, vinegary sauce.
“What product?” she asked.
