Kill 'Em All

by John Niven

  I can hear you asking – so how does this work? How does it go with this quasi-vegetarian, indie-rock-loving, Hillary-voting girl? I find many of the obstacles in these areas can be overcome by a very simple strategy: not listening to a fucking word she says. I mean, most relationships end up there anyway, I just accelerated it a little. You would not believe the amount of mileage I get from the phrase ‘that’s interesting’.

  Like now, for instance, on this warm, March Sunday morning as we drive out to Malibu for an afternoon at Soho Beach House. We have the top down, which Chrissy thinks is so ostentatious. And it’s true, driving this kind of motor – 200,000-dollar price tag, six-litre engine, about a mile and a half to the gallon – does get you some dirty looks from the bearded, hipster cycling communities if you venture much out of Beverly Hills or Hollywood, but, to be honest with you (and there’s not much point in being anything other than honest at this point, is there? We’ve come so far together. Shared so much), if I could get away with it, I’d have murals of starving children painted along the sides of the car, the tyres made out of moulded hundred-dollar bills that are visibly burning off as you drive by. Fuck them. ‘That’s interesting,’ I say again to Chrissy, who is scanning the weekend newspapers, laid out in her lap in the passenger seat as we come through Palisades.

  ‘It’s not “interesting”! It’s outrageous!’ she says. ‘You’re not even listening!’ She laughs – scandalised.

  That’s the other thing: she seems to know how truly appalling I am (well, she thinks she does. Obviously if she was party to three or four minutes of a frank conversation between me and Trellick she’d be spending a couple of months in therapy) and doesn’t care. Chrissy is banging on about the big news story of the week, the one that dominates the fake news this weekend. Trump has accused Obama of bugging his offices at Trump Tower during the campaign. ‘Terrible!’ the Donald said on Twitter. ‘Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!’

  ‘I mean,’ Chrissy fumes, ‘what proof does he have for this?’

  ‘A lot of people are talking about it,’ I say, loving it.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake …’

  Chrissy and her friends are obviously going bananas every day at the moment. They are going mad all the time. This is because they are still living in the Old America. I myself, even before the election, always lived – happily, sanely – in the New America. The America of realpolitik. What’s the deal in the New America? Well, it’s got nothing to do with proof or evidence or due process or any of that bollocks. You know what it’s got to do with?

  Massa told everyone Chicken George was a devious liar.

  And they’re listening.

  They’ve been dying to listen for eight years. Eight years staring slack-jawed at the TV – in their trailers, in bars where they drink domestic draft, in Southern police stations – and watching a black man in the White House, a black man who talked like his dad ate a Harvard lawyer. Did the Trump campaign go too far? Did it damage the discourse? These are the questions Chrissy and her friends keep themselves up with at night. I thought the campaign was fairly restrained myself. Let’s face it, he could have gone with a poster of Obama dressed as an actual cannibal (loincloth, human bones around his neck), grinning as he stirred a huge cooking pot swirling with white babies, aborted foetuses, bloodstained dollar bills and topped off with the tag line ‘DO YOU WANT SOME FUCKING MORE OF THIS, WHITEY?’, and 30 per cent of America would have stood up and fucking cheered.

  Chrissy’s phone rings and I half listen as she takes it. She says ‘Oh shit’. And ‘When?’ and ‘Are you sure?’ and stuff like that. She hangs up and sighs.

  ‘What’s up?’ I say when she hangs up.

  ‘Yep – they’re signing to XL.’

  ‘Have signed or are going to sign?’

  ‘Going to.’

  ‘OK. You’re not dead yet.’

  ‘Fuck! That weasel Danny Rent! He said –’

  ‘Calm down. Where are they?’

  ‘With the deal?’

  ‘No, physically. Where are the band?’

  ‘I, uh, I think they’re in Miami this week. For the Winter Music Conference.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I say. ‘That’s still a thing?’ I went to the WMC a few times, way, way back in the day.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘OK then – let’s doorstep the cunts. Make a last-minute offer-you-can’t-refuse.’ Actually, thinking about it, I quite fancy a trip over to Miami. I could look up Dick. He might be able to get me in there, up at Palm Beach. Just for lunch or something. Now that would be a laugh.

  ‘Steven,’ she says, ‘I think it’s over. We lost.’

  I try to picture my name in the same sentence as this odd, alien word – ‘Yeah, stelfox lost the deal.’ ‘Stelfox lost.’ ‘Stelfox is a loser.’ I find it can’t be done. Also, and this is further proof of what an appalling soft wreck I’m turning into, I want to help my girlfriend out here. ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ I sing, mock Beach Boys as we turn into the drive of Soho House, me enjoying the look of awe and respect on the black valet’s face as he approaches us, taking in the car, Chrissy, everything. You get none of the crap you get back in England out here. No one keys cars. Everyone reckons they’ll soon be sitting where you are. Why would they fuck with that? ‘We’ll get hold of Danny.’

  ‘Yeah?’ she says. ‘And do what? Kill him?’

  I just smile as I hand the keys and a fifty to the grinning kid. I’m looking forward to eating beside the ocean, to some grilled squid out there on the deck, some hamachi, maybe a little white wine, and then the drive back to Hollywood in the gathering dusk, sex later, then falling asleep in my emperor-sized bed high over Hollywood, looking forward to the royalties starting to pour in from the Du Pre record, to continuing to be rich and white in the land of the free.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘… hardwood floors throughout, this would obviously make a great den, opening up onto the gardens through here …’ The realtor, Barbara something, slid the doors open to show a green expanse of lawn sweeping away from the house. ‘Now they’re asking three-point-two, but I know they’re keen to sell …’

  Bridget Murphy stood in the open doors and pictured this three-bed, four-bath in Brentwood being her new home. Pictured herself coming out of these doors in summer, heading towards the long dining table over there, set up beneath a canvas awning, carrying a plate of something nice. (Because obviously she’d have learned to cook in this new life of hers.) Their friends (new friends, the kind you get when you’re rich) cooing, oohing and ahhing in awe over the house, the pool, the gazebo thingy.

  ‘Where are you at the moment?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘We’re, over, ah, we’re in the valley. Temporarily.’

  Barbara showed no disgust. ‘And are you selling?’

  ‘No, we’re …’ Bridget couldn’t bring herself to say ‘renting’. ‘It’s a cash buy.’

  ‘Oh.’ This signalled a change in attitude. ‘You know I’ve got a couple of very nice places east of here, fringes of Beverly Hills. You’re nearer five million then, but –’

  ‘You seen the size of the fucken kitchen?’ Glen, lumbering in down the hallway. He saw Barbara. ‘Sorry. Excuse me. Just, it’s a big kitchen.’

  ‘The house is great for entertaining,’ Barbara said, trying to place this tacky pair. Entertainment? Retail? ‘What line of work are you in, Glen?’

  ‘Oh, this and that.’

  Jesus, Bridget thought. Try and sound more like a drug dealer. ‘We’re in PR,’ Bridget said, inspired.

  ‘Oh, super. Anyone I’d know?’

  ‘Well, until recently.’ Glen lowered his voice. ‘Lucius Du Pre?’

  ‘Oh. I’m so sorry.’ Barbara looked at the floor, shook her head. ‘So tragic.’

  ‘Actually,’ Bridget said, shooting Glen a look, ‘we’d rather not talk about it.’

  ‘Guys, I’m so sorry. I didn’t
mean to –’

  ‘That’s OK. If you could just give us a few minutes, Barbara.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll be out front making some calls.’

  The front door closed, leaving the two of them alone in the big, empty house. ‘What the fuck, idiot?’ Bridget said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why even mention him?’

  ‘You started the bullshit! I was just … improvising!’

  ‘Why don’t you leave all that to me?’

  ‘You’re getting worse than Artie …’ Glen huffed, stomping off, the rubber soles of his biker boots clumping and squeaking on the dark hardwood.

  Ten per cent deposit, Bridget was thinking. Lowball them at two-point-nine, put around three hundred thou down now. They had a little over one-point-two million dollars in the secret account, their two-thirds of the two mil they’d received so far, minus around a hundred grand that had gone on ‘treats’ in the past couple of months: the new car (a Lexus SUV – they’d returned the Porsche and simply not told Artie about the Lexus, parked it around the corner the one time he came over for a meeting), clothes and vacations. Disneyland with Connor, a suite in the hotel there. There’d been a long weekend at the Four Seasons out at Santa Barbara, just the two of them. The ease with which they’d signed cheques, picked up new cashmere sweaters in the gift shop, charging them to the room. Eaten lobster and drunk champagne. Done good blow after dinner and stared at the ocean. It all felt right to her. It felt like – so this is where we were meant to be. All that other stuff, the life they’d led for the four decades leading up to this, it had all been training for what every American felt was their birthright. They weren’t quite there yet of course. Maybe twenty years ago you would have been. But a million didn’t mean shit any more. So you were a millionaire. So what? But they were close. Tantalisingly close. Memorial Day. Less than a couple of months away.

  Connor had been sad at Disneyland. The place had reminded him of Narnia. It had been a difficult time generally with Connor, with Du Pre’s face in the papers and on the TV and all over the Internet all the time. His music constantly on the radio. It had been difficult with Glen too, who had been less than sympathetic to his son’s complex emotional response to the death of the man they’d been blackmailing. (‘Why the fuck is he fucking crying about that asshole who fucking raped him again? Fuck him, Du Pre, the sick twisted mother fucker, I’d kill him myself if he was still alive, the fucken jagoff.’) Bridget’s response to Du Pre’s death, like her son’s, had been more complicated. She pictured herself, in years to come, trying to answer questions about what had happened to Connor, on talk shows, in interviews. How, as a mother, could she live with what had happened? She’d done a lot of reading on the subject. ‘Well, Oprah …’ she’d say. ‘I’d long known my son was gay. Yes, thirteen/fourteen is young, but look at the men we look up to when we see them with girls of that age: Jimmy Page, Bill Wyman, these guys. And did you know that the ancient Greeks venerated the practice of younger boys sleeping with older men? To them it was a sacred thing. So –’

  Yeah, that shit might not fly on Jimmy Kimmel. Sometimes she wondered if she could come right out and say what most people were thinking – ‘Yeah it was a fucken disgraceful situation and I’m glad he’s dead but you know what?We got paid, bitch.’

  Memorial Day.

  One way or another, they were getting paid.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  His plan came to him gradually, as it had for Moses – ‘And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.’ Lucius wasn’t sure if had been forty days and forty nights, one way or another – the handfuls of pills, the injections, the endless parade of dark flesh – he’d kind of lost track of time. But there had been several epiphanies that had led up to the confrontation. The first was sexual, some weeks ago. Lucius had been panting, staring at the back of the boy splayed on the bed beneath him. Lucius was kneeling, having just brought forth his seed with all the mighty vengeance of the Lord. He was staring, panting, at the nameless brown back, and the thought had occurred to him – ‘I don’t really like fucking Arab boys.’ And it wasn’t racism – Lucius loved all God’s children – it was something harder to articulate but that might have been boiled down to this: there was no fight. No seduction. Lucius realised that part of what appealed to him was the gradual winning – and the subsequent betraying – of trust.

  The second epiphany was directly ego-related. He’d been stretched out on bed, channel-hopping, when something had caught his eye: a fat youth, white, American, crying and talking to an interviewer. The youth was dressed exactly like Lucius had dressed around the period of Outlaw, in the mid-eighties. Black leather with rubber accessories. (Although a good deal more leather and rubber were involved in this kid’s outfit.) The chryo running across the bottom of the screen had read: ‘LUCIUS DU PRE FAN CRAIG SAYS HE’S LIVING IN HELL.’ Lucius never watched the news, the incredible lies they told about him. He’d spent the last few years studiously avoiding all media. But he’d thumbed the volume up in time to hear this Craig saying, ‘I still can’t believe he’s gone. I … I can’t sleep at night. I wake up crying …’ The interviewer’s voice took over as Lucius drew nearer the set, ‘… And it’s not just Craig who’s feeling that way. As the huge outpourings of grief at Du Pre rallies all across the country have shown …’ The image had cut to a sports hall, filled with thousands of kids dressed like him. They were crying, hugging one another, while his music played. ‘Although for some fans,’ the voice had said, ‘like Tracy Mueller, there is still hope …’ It had cut to another fan, a woman, in her early thirties, Lucius guessed, being interviewed in the sports hall. ‘I keep telling people. He’s not gone.’ Someone off camera tried to say something, to argue with her. ‘He’s NOT, he’s not gone. He’s out there. He just had to get away from all this …’ she gestured to the camera, the mike, ‘this whole circus. And he’s going to come back to us and it … it’s going to be so beautiful.’ Lucius had fought back tears as he’d nodded in sombre agreement. Yes, Tracy from Indiana, it could be so beautiful.

  On top of the epiphanies, there were practical problems. Like the increasingly tiresome Abdullah. As the weeks went by he kept finding more reasons to knock on Lucius’s door. To invite Lucius to join him in pastimes Lucius had no interest in – tennis, chess, ice skating, racquetball, all of which were available at private facilities within the estate.

  The final factor had become apparent as winter, such as it was here, became spring. It had occurred to Lucius when he decided to take a walk the other afternoon. Not a walk of course. Just a stroll, through the gardens and down to one of the many swimming pools. He’d gone just a few steps before he’d had to take shelter in the shade of the house. There was a thermometer on the wall beside him. It read 35 degrees. I mean, really. Seriously? In March? He’d gone to see Dr Ali.

  ‘You want what?’ Ali had said. He’d been standing in his vast bedroom, dripping from the shower, a towel around him, either just back from, or on his way to, the golf course.

  ‘I want to go home,’ Lucius had repeated.

  ‘I … Lucius …’ Ali had begun. Where to begin?

  Ali had been surprised by this hot Arabian province. Even though you could only play in the early morning and early evening, the golf course was sensational – a 6,800-yard gem, modelled on Pinehurst, with beautiful Bermuda grass, fast greens and some luxury improvements as yet unheard of on American golf courses: little refrigerators built into every tee-box, filled with water, Cokes, beers and champagne. You were given not one, not two, but three caddies – one to constantly attend you with a sun umbrella, one to go ahead and look for your ball, and one to drive the cart and give you yardages. Ali was only mildly surprised they hadn’t gone as far as to revert to having ‘jam boys’, black kids slathered in jam or honey, who walked a little way ahead, to attract the flies and stinging insects awa
y from you, like they had on Southern American courses in the old days. Yes, Ali had played on all the Trump courses back home, but this … this was some serious luxury. He had a good regular four-ball too – the Sultan, his cousin and one of the Sultan’s doctors. The cousin was a seriously good player, a two-handicapper. Under his tutelage and with playing twice a day nearly every day, Ali reckoned he had shaved a little over three strokes off his 15 handicap in the time they’d been here. By the time they went home at the end of May (not that Lucius knew this was the plan yet. He was on a strict need-to-know basis, as per Stelfox’s instructions) he might just have achieved his lifelong goal of getting into single figures.

  Then there was the food and drink – an endless, sumptuous banquet every night – and the women: incredible, compliant creatures delivered to (and removed from) his rooms whenever he desired. Yes, fair to say the doctor was enjoying his vacation. He had looked at Lucius, sitting on the edge of his bed, fidgeting with the TV remote, not making eye contact, speaking very quietly. Yes, he looked like a guilty child, but that could change in an instant with the provocation of the dread word ‘no’. Ali would have to tread carefully. He had gone over and sat on the chaise near the bed.

  ‘Lucius, we talked about this. I thought it was clear. We … it’s difficult.’

  ‘I’m bored,’ Lucius had said.

  ‘Well, is there something you want to do? The Sultan can arrange pretty much anything we –’

  ‘I want to see my fans.’

  ‘Your fans?’

  ‘They miss me.’

  ‘Of course they do. But part of the reason we’re here is because, you know, those comeback shows. Remember? You really didn’t want to go through with all that, did you?’

  ‘Sometimes I think, maybe I should have …’ Lucius had whispered.