BLACK Is Back

by Russell Blake

“I think we spend some time appreciating the aahht and then you make your move.”

  “Great. Let’s start in the next room. All this stuff looks like something my grandmother would have on her wall.”

  They meandered through the gallery, considering the merit of the various artists’ work – which as far as Black could tell was nonexistent – and marveled at the prices the gallery was trying to command. When they arrived at the final room, there were only a few people in it, and Black announced to Roxie that he was going to get some more wine and find a bathroom. He departed, leaving her alone with Todd and a fossil of a woman who looked like she’d been embalmed. Roxie positioned herself in front of one of Todd’s sculptures, which seemed to her to be a poor attempt at aboriginal art, and waited for the artist to make his way to her.

  “Do you like it?” he said, and she turned to face him. Todd was lean, fit, and handsome in a preppy sort of way, with sun-bronzed skin and a quick smile. She took a moment before answering.

  “I don’t know. I was hoping to find something more along the lines of dogs at a poker table or something.”

  His grin flashed a glimpse of white teeth. “I think they keep those in the other room. Next to the Thomas Kinkades.”

  “Is he the one that paints the whales?”

  “I see you’re a connoisseur.”

  “My dad dragged me here. Some togetherness BS. I want to kill myself.”

  “A nice gesture, though.”

  “Whatever. I think he feels bad because all I ever want to do is get high and party all night. He’s trying to give me culture.”

  “How’s that working?”

  “I’m beginning to think I might have a career as a stripper living in a trailer down by the sewage plant.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  She drained her almost full glass. “Wanna bet? Crap. I’m bored out of my mind.”

  “Art’s not for everyone.”

  “Art’s not for me. I’d do just about anything for a hit of X or a couple of rails to make this more interesting, but Pops has been on me like a parole officer all night. It sucks. I’m going to go get drunk,” Roxie announced, dangling the bait.

  “Wow. A girl on a mission.”

  “Hey, I like to enjoy myself. What can I say? What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Todd. I’m the sculptor. This is my work.”

  “Oh. Crap. Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s okay. Not everyone’s going to like the same things.”

  “Not hardly. I’m Roxie, by the way.”

  The conversation drew to a halt, and Roxie fidgeted. “Well, good luck with your stuff,” she said hesitantly.

  “Thanks.” He gave her a once over. “Not to be overly personal, but how old are you, Roxie?”

  “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Twenty-one,” she lied.

  “You aren’t a cop, are you?”

  She laughed. “Do I look like one?”

  “No, but you can never be too sure.”

  “I’m not a cop. Why?”

  “I was just thinking that I might know somebody who could help you with your…problem.”

  “What, have my dad knocked out so I can go party?”

  “No, maybe get you something to make the time go by faster.”

  “Ah. How much?”

  “A hundred fifty for a G.”

  “That’s too rich for my blood. I only have a hundred and twenty on me.”

  “A hundred fifty’s a great price for this.”

  “That’s what they all say. If you want the hundred twenty, you need to hurry up. My dad’s gonna be back any second.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a little wad of money. Glancing around to ensure they were unobserved, she leaned into him and slid it into his pocket. “This stuff better be super fly awesome, because that cleans me out for the week.”

  Todd smiled winningly again, and with a cautious look out into the other room, reached into his pocket and withdrew a small vial. “Merry Christmas, Roxie,” he said, and he slipped it into her hand.

  “This is so cool. Who knew that art could be so fun?” she said.

  “Do you live around here, Roxie?”

  “Over by Beverly Hills. Why?”

  “If you ever get bored and want to hang out and party, I have a lot of free time.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s your number, Todd the sculptor?”

  He gave it to her, and she entered it into her phone.

  “You got more blow where that came from?”

  “What do you think?”

  “How about X? Nothing better than sex on X.”

  “What a coincidence. That’s my favorite.”

  “Sex, or X?”

  He took another long, appraising glance at her, his gaze lingering on her pert breasts and form-fitting painter’s pants before he proffered another charming grin.

  “Both.”

  Chapter 26

  Roxie placed the vial in the Eldorado’s ashtray, having wrapped it with tissue to preserve any of Todd’s prints.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s a total dealer. And he was hitting on me like he just got out of prison,” she said as the night blurred by outside.

  “So he’s not only a dealer, but he also wants to bang you?”

  “Absolutely. I thought he was going to do a cartwheel when I told him I’d be calling for some ecstasy later. He made it clear that he digs sex on it.”

  “Is it that great?”

  “I hear it is. I’ve never taken it.”

  “Really?”

  “What do you think I am?”

  “Well, you do sing in a band, and you kind of have a certain vibe about you…”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m doing drugs.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “You’re really taking the whole dad thing to heart, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry I brought it up. I was just curious,” Black said.

  “You know what they say about that and cats.”

  “That they rhyme?”

  She was silent for a few moments. “I miss Mugsy. A lot.”

  “I kind of do too.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. He was like…the soul of the office.”

  She turned to regard his profile. “Mr. Poetic. Look at you. All that art must have rubbed off.”

  “I thought it was terrible. I mean, I don’t know anything about it, but it was all just ugly.”

  “You don’t hear me arguing, do you?”

  “Who buys that junk? I mean, I hate to say it, but Todd’s stuff was probably the best in there, and it looked like road kill.”

  “It’s bored rich women with too much time on their hands,” Roxie said.

  “I need to meet some of those.”

  “I thought you liked Sylvia.”

  “I do. I was speaking figuratively.”

  “But you metaphorically want a cougar to support you. I see.”

  “I’m a little too old for cougar bait. And not to support me, necessarily. Maybe just to buy me expensive trinkets as a reward for going to the gym all day.”

  “And buy a lot of Viagra for you.”

  “I mean, like a boxcar of it,” Black agreed.

  “You know it’s not a suppository, right?”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Just in case.”

  “I don’t use it.”

  “You prefer that Cialis, huh?”

  “No. I don’t need any of that.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You know, it just occurred to me, the way my luck’s been running, if a cop pulled me over, I’d get busted for having coke in the car,” Black said.

  “Try not to look shifty.”

  “How’s this?”

  “You look kind of sketchy.”

  “What about this?”

  “Even worse. Stop it. You look like
your face is made out of wax.”

  “Wax?”

  “Or ham.”

  Black drew to a stoplight. “You did good tonight, Roxie. Really.”

  “Sucks for Bobby and his daughter, though, huh?”

  “Big time. But that’s not my problem. I’ll write up a report, have you witness it, give him the vial and the story, and it’s on him. I wouldn’t trade places with him, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Witness it? Like some kind of religious thing?”

  “That’s bearing witness.”

  “Baring witness? Like getting naked and watching? Ew. Why am I surrounded by old pervs tonight?”

  “Just lucky, I guess. And I’m not that old.”

  “Right.”

  “Inside I’m still a little boy.”

  “This is getting seriously creepy again,” she complained.

  “Baaaaaaahbbbbyyyy’s Boooooooyyyy.”

  “I’m totally going to jump out of the car.”

  “Sorry. I’ll stop.”

  “Light’s green.”

  Black dropped her off at her apartment, where she lived with Eric, her tattoo artist boyfriend, and then returned to the office to type up the report while it was fresh in his mind. His heart sank as he put the words down, trying to make them sound dispassionate and clinical, but he knew that no matter how Bobby played it, his relationship with his daughter was going to suffer. She’d never forgive him for meddling in her life, or at least it would seem like she wouldn’t. Being a father seemed like a thankless job at times, and Black was glad he didn’t have any kids.

  He put the finishing touches on the report and placed the vial, still wrapped in Kleenex, in his drawer, feeling as crappy about the outcome of the assignment as any he’d undertaken. That he’d saved Bobby’s daughter from a womanizing dope dealer didn’t assuage the sense of depression. The world was filled with predators, liars, and cheats, and L.A. seemed to have a larger than usual concentration of them. His thoughts flitted to his parents, who lived in Berkeley in a state of perpetual naiveté, drifting through the world as though it were all rounded surfaces, a wonderland devised for their pleasure and safety. Was that any worse than the life he’d cobbled together for himself? One where being shot at, dry-humped by a scheming Latina, and perpetrating a drug sting were all in a day’s work?

  Black turned his office lights off and caught a glimpse of the cat door as his last visual impression before leaving. It was one of those days where everything seemed to be falling apart; even his lazy, obese cat had abandoned his ship before it sank into the depths.

  He found a parking place toward the end of his block, and secured his anti-theft club in place before making his way upstairs. A pang of wistful melancholy hit before he made it to the front gate of the Paradise Palms, and he wondered what his deal was. This was life. Sometimes it was tough. You marched on. Stopping wasn’t an option.

  His phone jangled in his pocket. He fished it out and smiled when he saw who was calling.

  “Black. Are you still up?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yeah. Long day. I’m just getting in.”

  “Can you come over?”

  “Now? Sure. Is everything all right?”

  “I miss you. That’s all.”

  “Me too. I’ll be over in ten. What are you doing?”

  “Watching stupid pet videos on YouTube. My usual late night excitement.”

  “I’ll join you. Want me to bring over some wine?”

  “You have some?”

  “The market does. Make it eleven minutes and I’ll be there with bells on.”

  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  When Black arrived at Sylvia’s apartment, she answered the door laughing, tears of mirth in her eyes. She threw her arms around him and planted a big kiss on his lips, causing Black yet another guilt attack, and then took his hand and pulled him to her computer desk.

  “You have to see this. Look!” she said, then started a video.

  The interior of an apartment with hardwood floors. Daytime. And then…a lighting streak of berserk furball launched from out of the camera’s range and landed on the couch, where it proceeded to claw at the back, creating mayhem as the fabric shredded and stuffing flew. Not satisfied with the damage, it then bounced off the sofa to the coffee table, where it knocked over a vase, breaking it and scattering the hundreds of small colored glass balls it had contained all over the floor. Which startled the feline wrecking crew, who sprang to an executive chair near a desk in the background and proceeded to gut the cushion with a dexterity that would have put a threshing machine to shame.

  The title of the short piece was “Killer Cat.” Sylvia turned to Black. “Doesn’t that look kind of like Mugsy?”

  She replayed it again, and paused it near the end, where the camera operator had zoomed in on the cat’s rotund face. There was no mistaking the malevolent glare. It was indeed Mugsy.

  “This was uploaded three days ago, and it already has eight hundred thousand hits. It’s hysterical,” Sylvia said. “I couldn’t stop laughing, and then I kept thinking it looked a lot like your cat.”

  “Not just looks like—it is him. The fat bastard strikes again. Does it have any information on who uploaded it?”

  “Let’s see… No, just the usual anonymous user account.”

  “Roxie will go nuts when she sees this. I wonder if there’s some way to track down who filmed it?”

  “I’m not super techie, but maybe she’ll know?”

  “If anyone will, she will. And she’s motivated. Although after watching this, a fair question is why anyone would want the filthy beast back in their lives. Look at him. He’s a feline demolition machine.”

  “But he’s out there, and now that you know, you need to do everything you can to get him back.”

  “Couldn’t I just make monthly payments for them to keep him?”

  “Black…”

  “Okay, okay. I was just kidding. Of course I’ll tell Roxie. And then she’ll move mountains and do whatever Matrix computer crap she specializes in and we’ll have one highly destructive, morbidly obese cat back in no time. And my new office chair will be toast within a few days.” Black sighed. “I wonder what I did wrong in my past life to deserve this?”

  “You love him. Stop being so grumpy. You know you want him back.”

  “That’s like saying I want psoriasis back.”

  “How was the concert and the showing?”

  Black regaled her with his account of the B-Side event and his set-up with Todd. She shook her head.

  “The daughter’s going to be devastated. Maybe not even so much about the dealing. But the cheating… a girl takes that personally.”

  Black felt about an inch tall at that moment, and inwardly berated himself for his moment of weakness with Genesis. Sylvia deserved better than him. Hell, anyone deserved better than him. And he wasn’t even going to start on his lustful thoughts about Roxie. Then again, with Roxie it was only harmless fantasy, if even that. It would be harder to argue that lip-locking a Puerto Rican bombshell was just an innocuous bit of fun. Black tried to imagine how he would feel if Sylvia had been macking on some stud earlier that day, and shuddered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just feel so sorry for Bobby, having to break the news.”

  “Does he have to? Isn’t there another way around that?”

  Which got Black thinking. Perhaps there was another path to achieving the same end. A devious one, to be sure – but one that might spare his friend the worst of it and preserve the daughter’s emotional world for just a little longer, before some other scumbag came along and wrecked it. Los Angeles was good for that, he’d found.

  Sylvia opened the bottle of wine Black had brought and they split it over a half hour, and then retired to her modest bedroom. After a passionate lovemaking session she lay in his arms, her breathing soft, while Black’s mind worried over the best way to achieve what he was considering for Todd, as well the wri
nkle Genesis had introduced into his life. If she cornered him again, he’d tell her “not interested” in no uncertain terms, any momentary physical attraction be damned. Which accurately described how he felt every time he thought about his weak reaction when put to the test. He could only hope that Sylvia was made of sterner stuff than he was.

  Which wasn’t tough, he had to concede.

  Chapter 27

  Rush hour traffic was characteristically ugly even on the surface streets as Black made his way into the office, and the Cadillac growled like a chained Rottweiler as it inched through the stop-and-go traffic. He sipped his cup of coffee as he drove, T-Ride’s “Backdoor Romeo” thumping from the stereo keeping him musical company. He’d awoken with a fully formed plan in mind for the Todd situation, and had a call in to Stan for some counsel – and hopefully a little help. It probably wouldn’t be strictly legal, but then again, who could keep up with all the laws these days? Pragmatism was the order of the day for the sensible man.

  His phone vibrated in his shirt pocket and he tapped it on after muting the stereo.

  “Black. Got your message. What’s up?” Stan asked.

  “I need some help with a private matter.”

  “Dude, if it’s the sex change, I don’t have a lot of cash right now.”

  “No, I decided to put that off for a few years. It’s more of a waste management issue.”

  “Little trash hauling, huh?”

  “Yup. Got a little problem I need your help with.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “Sky’s the limit. I’m willing to go as high as a double burger at Carl’s.”

  “With or without fries?”

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “I’m thinking combo, with the drink, too. I’m not kidding,” Stan warned.

  “Ouch.”

  “I’m not cheap.”

  “You make up for it with the easy thing.”

  “Man’s gotta know his strengths. So what’s up?”

  “What are you doing for lunch today?”

  “Eating a free double burger with large fries and a refreshing, icy cold Coke. Also free as part of the complimentary combo.”

  “Noon work for you?”

  “I could usually eat something by then.”

  “See you at the usual spot. Anything more on the speedboat explosion?”