Shortcut Man Page 4

  Benjamin was impatient, waved him off. “Never mind all that. Where is she?”

  The Filipino indicated toward the rear of the house with his shoulder, sniffed twice, quickly.

  “Thank you, Arnuldo,” said Benjamin. Then he turned to me. “Judy is snorting coke in the back.”

  Whatever gets you through the night. Though, on a moral scale, if you sifted long enough, things fell into two categories. Right or wrong. No middle ground. No neutral. “Lead onward,” I urged my host.

  We passed other behaviors, sexual and chemical, on the way through the house. Inhibitions had been long lost. It would be a five-maid cleanup team on the morrow.

  Finally, through the windows of the game room—Ping-Pong, pool, air hockey, backgammon—a knot of figures became visible in silhouette on the porch.

  The group was in high hilarity, each bending in turn to a small, shiny plane.

  Benjamin’s face reflected the fact that they were getting high on his dime. “Judy,” he called in a friendly fashion.

  I could see just one woman among them. The woman ignored Benjamin, bent down to the mirror once again.

  “Judy.” This time Benjamin’s voice contained a shred of a parent being patient.

  “Oh, for chrissakes, Artie,” said the woman, not turning around.

  Laughter from the knot.

  Benjamin smiled at me to reassure me he had not been disrespected. “Judy, there’s someone here I want you to meet.”

  “O-ka-ay, Lieutenant.”

  More laughter.

  I could see the tension in his jaw. He smiled at me again. Plainly artificial. Had he forgotten why I was here? Or was it a husband’s natural response to cuckoldry?

  The woman took a last toot, spun away from the gang, and walked into the game room.

  My Bloody Mary slipped through my fingers and shattered on the floor.

  Lynette.

  Lynette was Judy.

  Judy was Lynette.

  “Sorry,” I managed, feeling my face go hot.

  “Dick, this is my wi——”

  But Judy came forward, cut him off, thrust her hand out. “Hi, I’m Judy Benjamin.”

  We shook.

  “Glad you could come. And don’t worry about the glassware.” In shards at her feet. “It’s cheap shit we bought for the party. Artie will buy more.”

  “I’m Dick Henry.” Suddenly I was a bad actor. I glued a smile on my face.

  Judy looked around, then back at me. “You’ve made quite a mess, Dick. I bet you make messes all the time.”

  She looked at Artie. “Where’s Arnuldo?”

  Arnuldo appeared with whisk broom and dustpan and got to work.

  “Can Arnuldo get you another drink?” Judy was absolutely cool.

  “No, thanks.”

  Arnuldo finished up, eyed me, disappeared.

  Benjamin stepped in, clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ve just hired Dick as an associate producer for one of my projects.”

  Judy appraised me with new eyes, apparently. “Well, well, well. An associate producer. There’s a rare breed. What project are you going to be working on?”

  How the hell did I know?

  Benjamin stepped in, another bad actor. “He’ll be working on Rubber Babies.”

  “Rubber Babies. What’s the premise?” She looked right into my eyes.

  “Friction.” I was recovering somewhat, and shock had turned into anger.

  Judy laughed.

  Benjamin smiled through his teeth. “That actually wouldn’t be a bad title.”

  “Do I have to join the Writers Guild?” I was getting comfortable on my new horse.

  “Can you write?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you’ve got a future.”

  Benjamin studied us both. Then he put his hand on my arm, addressed his wife. “Excuse us, my darling. There’re a few other people I think Dick should meet.”

  Judy nodded. “Nice meeting you, Mr.———.” My last name had slipped her mind.

  “Henry,” I filled in. “Dick Henry. Nice meeting you, too.”

  She smiled and returned to the porch.

  Benjamin and I walked back the way we’d come, but he seemed preoccupied and didn’t introduce me to anyone. Of course. I’d half forgotten I was playing a role. He headed up to his office, gestured me to follow.

  Shutting the door, he took a seat behind his desk, opened up the desk drawer, pulled out a mirror and a small vial. He emptied the vial on the mirror, started chopping up the coke with an Armani charge card. “You do this shit?”

  I shook my head. “No thanks. I got other ways to blow my money.” Like alimony and child support. “But don’t mind me.”

  He didn’t. He chopped some more, then dug in his drawer again, retrieved a silver straw. The prehit ritual was complete. Then and only then. He huffed a huge line. He blinked, leaned back, sighed. “All I need now . . . is one more.”

  A man takes the shit. The shit takes the shit. The shit takes the man.

  Again he poured, chopped, and railed. Then disposed of his handiwork, looked up. “Well, that was my wife.”

  “That was your wife.”

  Then he leaned back and regarded me. “I got one question for you, Mr. Henry.” He tipped his head to one side, as if to truly observe me. “You, uh, know my wife?”

  I looked him right in the eye. “Sure I do, Mr. Benjamin. But I didn’t know she was married. To you. To anyone. I’ve been whacking her with the Dick-stick for three, four months.”

  How about that for the cold, naked truth?

  Benjamin opened his drawer, took out a huge handgun. He aimed it at my face and pulled the trigger.

  That’s how they found me. With my head blown off.

  I drove the Caddy eastward on Sunset. I could see the westernmost lights of the strip. The wind was cool and refreshing.

  Of course I didn’t say that.

  I had a chance to say something, but, in an instant, the time to speak up was irrevocably behind me and I was launched down the river of prevarication, committed to an unknown series of actions.

  And what about Lynette?

  Fuck Lynette.

  CHAPTER TEN

  And I Fell

  There was a knock at my door later that night. I knew it was her. I considered not opening it but I wanted to kill her so I did.

  “Fuck. You.” My first words.

  “Dick.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Are you going to invite me in or just curse me on your doorstep?”

  “Fuck it. Come in, Mrs. Benjamin.”

  In she came.

  “I don’t know what to say to you, I really don’t.” Except I knew all along something like this was coming, just didn’t know the moment of its arrival. My heart was smashed into a million pieces anyway. Of course, she had made herself up from nothing. How could I not know? How could Benjamin not know?

  “You could just say hello, Dick.”

  “Fuck you. Judy.”

  “I’m sorry, Dick.”

  “You’re sorry. About what, may I ask? That your husband has hired me to find out who you’re fucking?”

  A silence.

  “And how in Christ’s name did he call me anyway?”

  “I don’t know, Dick.”

  “What a fucking mess.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.”

  “Yeah, I guess you did. Because the person you met—the person you met was me—pretty close to me, anyway.” Like I said. No man is entirely honest with a beautiful woman. He knows better.

  “Dick—”

  “And why the name Lynette, for chrissakes? Where did that come from?”

  “It was my secret name for myself. The person I wanted to be instead of the person I was. The person I tried to give to you. And I gave you all the me I could give you.”

  Her words and the sound of her words disgusted me. Each a splintered mirror of my stupidity.

  “You”—I pointed
at her—“are a cold-assed liar. And now, you and I, you and I God help us, we’re in real trouble.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Yes, we are. He may be an asshole but he’s got brains. Has it occurred to you that his hiring me might not be a coincidence? He straight-out asked me if I knew you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I fucking lied. What do you think?”

  Quieter now. “Artie won’t hurt anyone.”

  I rubbed thumb and forefinger. “Money! Money! He has the means to hurt people. And look at what’s-his-name. Arnuldo. That’s what he does. He hurts people. And if something tears Artie’s blinders off and he realizes that he’s just a chump with a whore for a wife and nothing to lose—then he’s dangerous. Really dangerous.”

  “I guess you keep him in the dark.”

  “What else?” I needed the dark myself.

  I walked back to the bedroom where the window looked out into the cool. Only the crickets were busy. I envied their purpose of mind.

  The floor creaked. She’d followed me in. I should’ve turned around, kicked her in the ass, and told her to get the hell out.

  I felt her hand upon my shoulder. Smelled the trace of perfume that floated off her wrist.

  “Make love to me.”

  I didn’t move. “Get outa here. Just go.”

  “Dick.”

  “We’re not capable of making love, you and me. I don’t even know your name. We’re just capable of fucking.” I stared out into the garden darkness.

  Her voice was a wet whisper. “So, fuck me, Dick.”

  I spun around to slap her. She didn’t flinch. She put her face up.

  “Go ahead, hit me. I deserve it.”

  I just stood there, then grabbed her hair and threw her onto the bed. She laughed. Crookedly.

  I didn’t bother with her blouse, just took her pants, ripped them down. She kicked out of them with a moan. At the jade gate I pulled her panties to the side. I brought my finger up from below, and it slipped right in. She didn’t need any warm-up. I tore the panties down but not off, rolled her knees up, slapped her ass hard, back and forth, whack whack, pushed her legs back and went in.

  We rode like the devil was behind us. I was filled with rage and a ferocious body joy at the same time and knew I was in total control. I took her through the clouds and rain over and over and over and finally sighted it for myself. I went up the mountain like a soldier beyond concern of life or death and at the top of all things she drew her nails down my back and I exploded into nothingness, separated all the cells of my being, then fell back into myself, through myself, a neutron star of ultimate and painful density, then I was on the other side and a second wave approached and I thought it was impossible but I went up and over, helpless, disintegrated again, low and beautiful, grinding, utter agony, strung atom by atom, then I fell and I fell and I fell and I fell.

  PART TWO

  Coils of the Beast

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Water Hammer

  In the middle of the night I woke up, made myself a glass of ice water, walked back to the bedroom. She was sleeping.

  If you believed in God, it was not hard to imagine His love for her. The subtle arches of her eyebrows, the delicate curves of her ears, the ruddy fullness of her lips, her porcelain skin, the miraculous, mysterious line of demarcation where her black black hair began on that unlined forehead. I could look, look again, and look again.

  I believe that deep in a man’s soul, never glimpsed by his conscious mind, is his personal template of ideal beauty. And the closer the contemplated is to this unknown ideal, the more qualities we are willing to lend, and the easier it is to fall in love with them.

  Lynette was plainly amoral, possibly evil. But, looking into her face, I could see only compassion, kindness, and goodness. So here I sat, between Benjamin and Lynette, my loyalties divided and paralyzed, realizing the impossibility of serving two masters.

  What did she want? Lynette had told me her story, but since her name was not even Lynette, who knew what was bullshit.

  High school diploma in hand, she’d run away from home, Mt. Clemens, near Detroit. Armed only with Joyce’s Ulysses, of which she claimed no man had read past the first three chapters, she survived a bus trip to San Bernardino. But somehow, sleep-deprived, she hadn’t disembarked and ended up in Long Beach.

  She’d gotten a job at a coffee shop, met a kid named Brett Russell. From Wisconsin. He was in the Navy. They’d gotten engaged. He was the love of her life. His ship, the St. Louis, an amphibious cargo something or other, departed on West-Pac. Between Long Beach and Pearl, Russell had fallen, had jumped, or had been pushed over the side. Conclusions aside, he wasn’t onboard when they reached the islands.

  But no one informed her of anything, engagement was an unofficial condition. She just never heard from him again. She thought she’d been abandoned. At the free clinic, Dr. Lim told her she was pregnant. Her stepmother told her not to come home. She had an abortion ten days later. There were complications. She could no longer conceive. Which was okay with her. She never wanted brats.

  Nine months later the St. Louis returned to Long Beach. A shipmate of Brett’s, Joey Long, ran into her and told her the bad news. She and Joey got close. Close enough. It was a rebound thing.

  They got married in a funky wedding chapel on Pine Avenue and moved into the little apartment she and Brett used to share. The plumbing in the place was weird. Sounded like someone was banging on the pipes.

  “Water hammer,” I’d said.

  Lynette had laughed. “That was it! That’s what Joey called it.”

  “Joey was a machinist’s mate. Or a boiler tech.”

  “A machinist’s mate! With the little propeller on his shoulder.” She’d shaken her head. “I can hardly remember his face. I’d cook these wretched little dinners and we’d watch TV, smoke pot, and screw. We’d go to the Navy Exchange and buy cheap cigarettes. We had a stereo with a thousand buttons and switches but it only worked on AM. On one speaker.”

  She’d lit up a cigarette. “One day we’d run out of pot and the place was a wreck. Joey went out with his friends. And I caught myself thinking, Who is this guy? It was basically over.”

  “There wasn’t a grand finale?”

  “Oh, there was a finale. He got caught sniffing butyl nitrate or something on a duty night. And fucking the radioman.”

  “I didn’t think they had women on those ships.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “They didn’t what?”

  “Have women on the ship.”

  “Oh. Oh.” It takes me a while.

  “Which was the real problem.”

  “Joey liked dudes.”

  “Joey walked both sides of the street.” She laughed. “So we got a divorce and I drifted up to Vegas.”

  Beauty stretched, an angel gently recalled to life. Her eyes alighted upon me, and the corners of her mouth turned up. “Make love to me, Dick,” she said.

  I looked at her, and all dark things washed out of my mind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Tale of Johnny Santo

  The next morning she was gone. Good. I had work to do and needed to think. Or not to think. I made a thick cup of black coffee, and Rojas knocked at the door.

  It was impossible to be depressed in Rojas’s company. He just wouldn’t let you. He sauntered into the kitchen, tossed his jacket over a chair, sat down. He took one look at my face, shook his head. “Fuck you,” he said.

  Immediately I felt better.

  He sparked a joint, took a deep draft. “So whazzup, white man?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Looks like something happened last night.”

  “Well, it didn’t.”

  “Whatever you say, dude.” He snorted. “You know you can’t hold nothin’ back from me.”

  An old friend, Jonathan, had once called me fibissedah-face. Yiddish. Meaning all my feelings paraded across my mug, clearly to be read. I
remembered his comment and adopted a purposeful neutrality.

  “You ain’t foolin’ nobody,” said Rojas.

  I told him about a roach coach, a bad burrito, and immigrant bathtub cheese.

  “Horseshit,” said Rojas.

  I offered breakfast and he accepted. I made my special scrambled eggs with sourdough toast. As he ate, I explained how, during a fragrant portion of my marriage, I had been called the Egg King.

  “Bullshit,” said Rojas.

  Well, all right. Actually, I called myself the Egg King.

  I explained the morning’s mission. Five minutes later we were cruising down Sunset to the beach. It was a nice, sunny ride, not too hot. We made a right at Gladstone’s and rolled north on PCH to Topanga.

  Topanga Canyon was the last Los Angeles habitat of that disappearing species, the hippie. Pushed out of Laurel Canyon by rising rents, they were faced with two choices, becoming the man or fleeing the man to Topanga.

  Eventually they’d be pushed out of Topanga, too. But not quite yet. We passed the Fernwood Market and then some, made a left at Old Topanga.

  It was rural, peaceful, and every Angeleno driving these roads considered chucking everything and living here. Where the air was invisible. But the reality was, unless you could conjure enough money to facilitate your lifestyle, opulent or meager, it was just too far from the ant farm.

  On top of a gentle hill we saw an address on a mailbox, pulled in, drove down a long driveway.

  “Who are these people again?”

  “The Hartfords.”

  “Right. And who’s the dude?”

  “Sky Blue.” Chances were good Sky Blue was a hippie.

  We knocked on the door, heard footsteps, then met the Hartfords.

  He was tall and skinny but crooked, his wife was not quite five feet. She tipped her head, squinted belligerently at me. It looked like she wore the pants. Certainly a more perfect union.

  “Are you him?” she asked.

  “I’m Dick Henry; this is my associate, Enrique Montalvo Rojas.”

  “You’re the short shrift man?”

  “Maybe.” I had no idea how long my shrift was, or if indeed I possessed one, or any. “What is a shrift?”