Shortcut Man Read online

  “It means penance,” said her husband. “Short shrift was a quick penance a sinner could complete before absolution and execution.”

  The human condition. You’re sentenced to death and still they’re rushing you.

  The woman suddenly concluded we were the right guys, invited us in, introduced herself. “I’m Sara. This is my husband—”

  “Roland.”

  We passed through the living room done western style and out onto a back veranda.

  “This is the problem,” said Sara.

  All it took was a glance. I’d been told, by the Hartfords’ son, who was paying me, that a man in a tent wouldn’t leave. Which sounded easy enough.

  But what I was confronting was a settlement. There was the Army tent. But above it was a huge orange silk parachute wired to a spreading oak tree. Under the parachute’s generous circumference I saw a lean-to, a fire pit, some water jugs, a stack of rabbit cages, two chicken coops, a recliner upholstered in ragged leatherine, five or six junk bicycles, two shopping carts, three or four differing chairs, a table with three legs and a cinder block, some spindly pole lamps, a collection of toilet bowls, and a garden with some marijuana cultivation.

  “I let Sky put in a tent. Temporarily.” Sara looked up at me.

  I nodded. “And one thing led to another.” What we had here was a zoning problem.

  “Did you ask him to vacate the premises?”

  “Yes.”

  “But?”

  “But he said he wasn’t ready.”

  And grew less ready every day.

  She pointed to the marijuana. “See. He does like the Indians did.”

  Rojas looked at me, then at Sara. “Like the Indians did what, ma’am?”

  “He smokes his corn all day long,” said Sara. “They called it maize.”

  So there you have it.

  The Hartfords retreated. Rojas shook his head, looked at me accusatively. “I ain’t no handyman, ese.”

  I’d been thinking the same thing. Then I had an idea. I tapped at the back door. “Mrs. Hartford, do you have any twine?”

  “Twine? Oh, yes we do!” piped up Roland, over her shoulder, with a triumphant look at his wife.

  In fact, Roland had one of the world’s largest balls of twine still in captivity. Its girth dominated the toolshed. Good, sturdy stuff, Christmas tree quality.

  One more question. “Can I drive my Cadillac into the backyard?”

  “Sky wouldn’t like that,” said Sara, clucking. “Is it a green vehicle?”

  No, it’s not.

  “Go right ahead,” said Roland.

  A green vehicle? That meant Sky wouldn’t immediately appreciate the mighty horsepower of a 472-cubic-inch, eight-cylinder engine, the largest production-run power plant in the history of the Motor City.

  I explained my plan to Rojas. He laughed. We got our twine and set to.

  After a bit he looked over at me. “I didn’t tell you, dude. Gloria and I are, uh, we’re through.”

  Gloria was Rojas’s wife. I liked Gloria. And I liked Rojas. And I liked them together. “Through? Why?”

  “I dunno. I was lookin’ at her the other night, she was making something in the kitchen, and I thought to myself, I don’t know this woman. I don’t know her. She’s a stone stranger. It was deep. It was freaky.”

  “You never know anybody.”

  “Don’t you think you should?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not sure it helps.”

  “What about you and the stewardess chick? You told me how much you were diggin’ on her.”

  “I said that?”

  “You said that.”

  “I don’t know her at all.”

  “You’re fucked up.”

  I was fucked up. I couldn’t get the situation out of my mind. The new equilibrium, if there was to be one, was way off. The floor had been pulled from beneath my feet.

  An old memory flickered to life, back from Navy days. Once a year or so I’d venture back to L.A. from wherever I was stationed. My good friend Joe, in celebration, always took me up to the Mulholland Club. It was a big, white snobatorium above Mulholland Drive, looking down on the lights of the valley. Joe would leave his car with the valet crew, we’d enter grandly, flirt with the staff, swim, use the sauna, the weight room, eat in the dining room, have a ball.

  In the last year of my enlistment, I asked Joe a question as we changed into our trunks.

  “Joe,” I said, “we’ve been coming up here forever. How come you always put your shoes and stuff on top of the locker—instead of in the locker?”

  “Oh, that’s simple,” said Joe, peeling off a sock. “I’m not a member.”

  In that instant I made transit from prince to weasel, spent my last hours at the Mulholland Club on tiptoe, grinning at the staff. Joe had a grand old time, as always. Hey, Joe, I miss you.

  Rojas straightened up, hands at his back, surveyed our work. “We’re done here.”

  We went back to the house, the Hartfords poured us some lemonade.

  “You’re going to need a hauler,” I said. “You know one?”

  “Bill at Fernwood,” said Sara.

  A shadow crossed the window. “I think that’s Sky,” said Roland in a small voice.

  I stood up. “We’ll go have a talk with him.”

  In the backyard, a huge, bearded, big-bellied, middle-aged man with very long hair and a kerchief had spied the Caddy and was looking around. He very much resembled Blackbeard the pirate. He weighed in at about 350. He turned, thunder on his brow.

  “Yo. What the fuck here?”

  I turned to Rojas. “I think this is Sky Blue.”

  “No shit.”

  “Prepare to drive on my signal.”

  Rojas appeared disappointed. “How come you always get the fun part?”

  “All right.” I pulled a quarter out of my pocket, flipped it. “Call it.”

  “Tails.”

  Heads.

  Rojas walked for the Cadillac.

  I felt that twinge of anticipation as Sky Blue closed on me. He had not seen the twine or divined its purpose. “Would you be Mr. Blue?” I inquired affably. Affable is my starting point.

  Blackbeard ignored my demonstration of gracious living. “That old piece of shit your car?”

  You don’t hit someone for bad-mouthing your car. But his rudeness forced me to consider his aura. It was reddish and dark, running to violence. I wondered if the fates would summon me to directly adjust his celestial trajectory. “I’m Dick. I’m here to help.”

  “Help?”

  “Mrs. Hartford says you been smoking too much corn. So you’re moving.”

  Across the yard, Rojas started up the Cadillac.

  Sky’s eyes narrowed. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, dude. Who the fuck says I’m moving?”

  “I do.” I measured Sky Blue’s chin.

  “I dare you,” said Blackbeard.

  “Okay.” I signaled to Rojas.

  Rojas stepped on the gas, the Caddy moved forward, snapping the slack out of the heavy twine. The first thing that moved was one of the shopping carts. It leapt into the air. A second later, in its entirety, the settlement was ripped from it moorings. The tent, the parachute, the cages, the coops, the bicycles, the chairs, the shopping carts, the pakalolo, the recliner, everything—everything was pulled through high grass and down the driveway.

  Fifteen seconds later, the only thing left was a big cloud of dust.

  Sky stared, slack-jawed, at the location where so recently the ciudad de ganja had metastasized. He turned to me, eyes bulging with rage. I stepped back, ready to launch the karma missile.

  Then Blackbeard burst into tears.

  I hit him anyway. A straight overhand right to the chin. Down went Sky Blue.

  We rolled him into the backseat, drove him down the canyon, stopped across the street from Fernwood Market.

  The sissy was still sobbing. I turned around. “Knock that crying shit off, buddy, or Mr. Rojas will
beat the living piss out of you.”

  “O-okay.”

  Now that we had him off-property it was time for skillful intimidating threats, ensuring his nonreturn.

  “You know who Johnny Santo is?” I began.

  “Y-yeah,” said Sky.

  “You do?” I’d made the name up out of thin air.

  “He makes pizza at Andre’s.”

  “Not that Johnny Santo, asshole. The one who’s part of the Bonanno family. They own Los Angeles. Sara Hartford is his aunt by marriage. He told us to barbecue your nuts.”

  “A la carte,” detailed Rojas.

  “You go back up there, Sky, ever again, Johnny Santo will rip out your tongue and stuff it up your ass with a fork. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Sky Blue got out. A breeze came up and blew him toward Fernwood Market. Like a plastic bag, he would end up somewhere he did not belong. But not with the Hartfords and not my problem.

  Then, halfway to the market, he turned and came back. “Hey. You guys got a joint?”

  Fuck you. The nerve.

  Rojas and I headed back to Hollywood. I shook my head. “The balls of that asshole.”

  “Strange balls,” said Rojas. Which reminded me of that song by Cream. He lit up his joint, looked at me. “At least we know where Johnny Santo works.”

  “Andre’s.”

  Rojas snickered. “Johnny Santo.”

  “It sounded good at the time. Like a bad motherfucker.”

  He took another poke. “Not so bad, I guess.” He exhaled in a satisfied manner. “You know”—he paused—“Gloria and I aren’t really through.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so, man.”

  “You figure you really do know her?”

  “No. But hell, I don’t know nobody. Like you. You could be anyone. Who the fuck are you? I mean who the fuck are you?”

  Who the fuck was I? Lately I’d been a little disappointed. “I don’t know who I am. I just show up every day.”

  “That’s fucked up, dude.”

  “Well, who are you?”

  “Enrique Montalvo Rojas.”

  Like I said. You couldn’t be depressed in Rojas’s company. He was probably a Mayan prince. I handed him an envelope containing five honeybees.

  He put the envelope in his pocket, nodded, smiled. “Thank you, brother.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Marriage and Temptation

  I couldn’t get Lynette off my mind. I’d been a goddam fool. And would’ve continued being a fool. And maybe I was a fool all over again. Starting last night.

  And fool Benjamin. To whom I’d promised results in two or three weeks. Why in hell had Benjamin married her? He couldn’t have believed a girl like Lynette, like Judy, would fall in love with him, could he?

  But of course he could. A man’s capacity to delude himself is voluminous and rife with opportunity. Equipped with a magic mirror at birth, he works a lifetime to improve its reflectivity. Eventually, when nature demanded, the comb-over and the Orlon toupee would pass muster.

  Luckily, I still looked pretty good.

  I’d been married before. Marriage is a funny proposition. It requires all one’s good qualities and often calls forth one’s worst. You wouldn’t drive to Fresno in a car that had a fifty percent chance of breaking down over the Grapevine, yet, at the pass line, I mean the altar, millions of gamblers try their luck and bet their lives.

  My own marriage I had blown out of the water three years ago. Georgette and I had been married twelve years, and I really couldn’t tell how I felt about things any longer. Love, duty, habit, children, fatigue—it was all a mishmash. I began to wonder if I was capable of fucking—versus the more sedate activity of making love. Not that making love was bad once we set a date, cleared the schedule, made dinner for the kids, and got around to harnessing the love machine. Without falling asleep from pure exhaustion.

  Temptation presented itself, and I succumbed directly.

  Kiera Allen was Arnold Kugler’s secretary. Kugler was my CPA years earlier. I’d rescued him from the snares of a blackmailer.

  Kiera was a very pretty, dark-headed woman whom I’d flirted with a hundred times. She looked up from her desk with a smile, chewing her gum with tidy, efficient mastications. “Mr. Kugler wanted you to sign both of these. He asked me to apologize for not being here.”

  She slid the documents across her desk, opened her gold fountain pen, very slowly slid the cap over the barrel, and handed it to me in a significant manner. I caught a glimpse of cleavage and a whiff of perfume.

  “Thank you, Kiera.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Henry,” said Kiera. She had china blue eyes.

  I had just come from a disagreeable discussion with Georgette about stuff in the garage. What was the big deal? No one I knew could park more than one car in a two-car garage. Stuff took over. Stuff took space. Not only that, I had just been paid a good sum for a particularly clever piece of work. I was picked on and unappreciated.

  I signed Kugler’s documents slowly, largely. I recalled that the size of space-containing letters, o, d, e, p, b, et cetera, was a measure of ego. Portly. My ego that day was portly.

  Kiera looked up at me. “You have large hands.”

  “Yes, I do,” I replied, realizing I was standing at a precipice. I looked into her eyes.

  She stared back.

  I went forward. “Can I cut to the chase?”

  Kiera looked down before she looked up. “What, uh, do you mean?”

  I leaned down, into the fragrant vicinity of her ear, whispered my intentions. Kiera’s eyes went wide and she swallowed her gum.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Pussy

  Not that I loved pussy a la carte. Regardless of what I had suggested to Kiera Allen. But sometimes it was the means to an end.

  I recalled my first advice on the matter. It had come from a seventh-grade classmate, Ted, a shameless and notorious liar. Not only had he done everything known to man, he had done it twice or had done it better. You ever steal a car? Stole a Ferrari. From a prince. Ever hook a worm? Wrestled an anaconda. Ever fuck a midget? Sure. Once in Bakersfield, once in Victorville.

  He imparted the great pussy-eating secret at recess. You just get down there and say Mississippi. Of course, I nodded, everybody knows that. Secretly I was confused. You just got down there and said Mississippi to what? And why Mississippi? Why not Monongahela?

  I kept my peace on the subject for years. Not that I was adverse to exaggeration or the outright lie on more general subjects, like communism, or ninja technique, but here I felt a natural trepidation about discussing what I might be called upon to specifically describe. The vagina was a mysterious organ, an inverse organ one might say; even its exact location was undefined. Like the Spice Islands. It was down there.

  My second significant pussy tutorial was in Navy boot camp, San Diego. Our company commander, Kennington, had determined, on the way home from the White Pig, to awaken his recruits for a lecture. He was three sheets to the wind and filled with a poisonous wrath toward all humanity and his company of recruits in particular.

  The lights flickered on in the barracks. But not prefaced by reveille. Something was up. Then I heard Kennington.

  “Get up, you greasy little lambs,” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  Hurriedly we assembled, standing at attention near our bunks, dressed in our skivvies, swaying in early consciousness.

  Kennington railed at us for our failings, our putrid hopes and dreams, our feminine characters. Of one phenomenon, however, we should have no fear. Drowning. We should not fear drowning because, sure as God made little green apples, He had decreed that shit would float. We would be safe but soggy.

  Then, naturally, the subject turned to pussy. “You shitheads know how to eat pussy?” He sprayed the nearest among us with spittle.

  We stood silent.

  Which Kennington could not abide. “Did you hear me, ladies?” He dri
pped scorn from every syllable. “I asked you assholes a question. You assholes know how to eat pussy?”

  A few of the liars among us ventured that they did. I held my peace. Even though I had plumbed the great mystery, going down there and lapping assiduously. Albeit in an indiscriminate manner.

  “What you do,” continued Kennington in high bellow, “what you do is get down there and find the little man in the boat. That’s who you gotta find. The little man in the boat.”

  He searched the faces of his recruits as if his advice had been self-evident. “Who do you have to find?” he queried savagely.

  “The, uh, man in the boat,” was the weak, uncertain response.

  “Who do you have to find?” Kennington had grown purple-faced in fury. How did it come to be that he, lustrous Kennington, had to instruct these limp-wristed ladies in something he was born knowing? Christ Jesus, he was an expert in utero. “Who do you have to find?”

  “The little man in the boat,” we chorused.

  “Who?”

  Now we knew our line. “The little man in the boat,” we yelled. Our roar of certitude echoed through the barracks, the base, through all of San Diego.

  In the silence that followed, Recruit Crudeldorf raised a tentative hand.

  “Yes, you maggot?” snarled Kennington.

  “Uhh, where is the little man in the boat?” asked Crudeldorf, speaking for many.

  Shit. That would be Mississippi.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Francie Must Die

  I awoke the next morning with business on my plate. I headed over to the Farmers Market, Third and Fairfax, grabbed a cup of coffee at Bob’s Donuts, sat under a ficus tree, waited for my new client.

  Betty Fraiden, fiftyish, had come on behalf of her father, Franklin Tillman. Mr. Tillman had entered into correspondence with a woman in the Philippines. The relationship had turned pecuniary. Mrs. Fraiden showed me a sheaf of letters.

  “You think these are for real, Mr. Henry?”

  As Ms. Fraiden picked up some gumbo on the back patio, I read the whole batch, accumulated over a year. Like a well-composed piece of music, the letters started simply and waxed to a sublime and noble passion. With a secondary theme of darkness, deprivation, and tragedy. Mr. Tillman had offered financial assistance at the halfway point. Francie, with deep reservations, had accepted.