Battle of the Network Zombies (24 page)

It was even more clearly unromantic in a dirty cab, surrounded by the dead and facing down another car crash. I was beginning to think walking was a palatable option, but who am I kidding, I just needed to get a fucking car.

At the speed we were travelling it took me a moment to realize where we were headed. I elbowed Wendy. “The Harbor Steps.”

She grimaced and frantically fumbled with the seatbelts. I followed suit, pressing half into Pie-hole, who grinned as though I’d touched his ghost package. Maybe I had. I pulled the belt around and tried to find the buckle, squeezing my fingers into the crevasse between the cushions and coming up empty.

When I glanced up, we were crossing 1st Ave. I braced myself against the seatback and closed my eyes as we jumped the curb and launched out into the space above the steps. My insides shifted in that weightless moment and I felt like I would spew, but in the next second the cab collided with something hard enough to send me tumbling over the seats and out the front window.

I must have passed out.

Sort of a welcome event.

Sort of.

“Amanda.” Hands on my shoulders, rocking me. “Amanda.”

I peeked out of the corner of my eye and saw Ricardo’s concerned face hovering over mine. “Wow. Is that your prosthetic digging into my hip?”

He might have flushed but instead just smirked. “No.” He stretched out the word, like he wasn’t aware Marithé had let the cat out of the bag. Or the boner, as the case may be. I decided to let it go.

“Can you sit up?”

I pushed myself up on my elbows and stared at the wreckage of the cab. Twisted metal and shattered glass marred poor Ricardo’s minimal atmosphere. A big hole in the wall overlooked the well-dressed human patrons of the nearby churrascaria, while tanks of anesthesia spun uncontrollably, filling the room with a scraping metallic noise and sputtering clouds of the Ether’s life juice. Baljeet planted herself atop the heap, her arms folded and a scowl severe enough to create instant wrinkles carved into her face. Raj and the boys wandered nearby. A single arm snaked out of a dark gap, waving frantically.

I sighed, scanning my body, which miraculously appeared unscathed. I probably should have been happy just to be alive and moving. I really was blessed.

The arm retracted into the wreck. A grumbling echoed inside the hulk, Wendy curling around inside like a turtle.

You know what I could have really gone for just then?

The arm shot straight out, dangling from between the zombie’s delicate fingers, a pristine cigarette.

“Get her out of there!” I screamed.

Maxey popped in through the hole and snapped his fingers, a spark rolling off them like he’d tossed a die. It popped up off the floor and bounced across the cab, leaving a thin bead of molten metal in its wake. The crumpled car split in two and Wendy emerged wholly unscathed.

She grinned at the little fae.

“That’s two you owe me.”

Ricardo frowned and shook his head. And I ran up and snatched the cigarette from her hand, and as I was lighting up I whispered, “You look good.”

“If you order a fresh-baked cookie you get a song.” The barista grinned broadly and cocked her head. I half-expected to hear a hollow “tink” as her pea brain rolled from one side to the other.

“Well, in that case,” I said. “We’ll just have the two espressos.”

Mortimer, as her nametag suggested, soured up real quick and stabbed the keys on her cash register even as her face twisted like a camera shutter. I shoved some cash across the counter and joined Wendy at the opposite side of the Buick-sized espresso machine.

“I’m sorry about the lawsuits, I know that can’t be good for business or your finances. I want you to know I wouldn’t seriously force you to live with Ethel. Hell. You’d murder her within twenty-four hours.”

“No doubt.” I shuffled my Ferragamos. These sorts of emotional and genuine discussions were pretty rare in our circles and I’d learned to let them happen and not make fun—as is my nature (not telling you anything you don’t know).

“You can stay with Abuelita and me,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, which was really a bit much, but again my instincts aren’t always right, so.

“Thanks.” I brightened. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary though. Things with Scott and me are going really well. I’ve got a place to stay…if it comes to that.”

“Still, Karkaroff is going to be hot when she gets back and gets word of this.”

I imagined she would, but that was three months away and her partners at her law firm would be all over it long before then, just to see her name listed on the court documents. “She’s the most frightening attorney I know,” I said, reaching for the tiny paper cups of espresso. “If anyone is prepared to deal with it, she is.”

We took our spots on the veranda beside the drive-thru. The only thing we’d changed about our daily ritual was the time of day, or night as it were.

“So when’s Seattle’s most adorable drug dealer premiering her opium den?” Gil flopped down next to Wendy, slipped one arm around her shoulder and tickled her side with the other.

She batted his hand away. “Stop it! You’re going to pinch off some skin. And anyways, it’s not an opium den, it’s more like a Tupperware party, only with frotteurists and pretty models instead of cranky housewives and burping seals. I’m still figuring out the business. Abuelita’s teaching me the ropes. Getting some ‘ins’ with the distributors. Gotta isolate my niche, you know?”

“The whole fetish angle has got to be cookies and cream for kinky vamps.” I sniffed the steam coming off the dark shot. Heaven is a memory for me. The crema crept up the sides of the little paper cup like snowdrifts. Dirty snow drifts. Oh crap…you know what I mean.

Gil narrowed his eyes. “Were you looking at me when you said that?”

I smiled and joined in the weird cloud comparisons. “It’s like a
Home Interiors
party only instead of sniffing eucalyptus candles, guests get to dry hump and pass out in a pool of their own sick.”

“Exactly.”

Vance came whistling out of the café, hefting a massive blended coffee concoction and pulled a chair up behind Gil, resting his head between his boyfriend’s shoulders as he slurped.

“So here’s a question.” Wendy took a big shocking gulp of her espresso and slunk back in her seat, propping her feet up on the edge of the table.
¹⁰³
“Why’d he even try to fake his own death?”

“Who, Johnny?” Vance asked, a dollop of whipped cream on his nose. Gil kissed it off lightly and their cuteness made me want to run screaming into the night to do something horrible like eat a preschool or mix batteries in with the recycling.

“Who the fuck else would we be talking about?” I snorted the steam off my espresso.

He ignored my irritation. “That’s simple. He knew the yeti were gunning for him. Would have crucified his ass, too, had they gotten the chance.”

Somewhere I knew that, from Scott, but it got lost in the money matters. Also because I was secretly hoping that it’d happen. I guess the appearance of the creatures in his mail threw me off, thinking it was part of his plan.

“What about the wood nymph carcass?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Johnny’s hate mail. It included a wood nymph carcass pinned to a cedar shake.”

“That doesn’t sound yeti to me. Too weird. Unnatural. They’re much more straightforward. Like if they catch you they kill you. That kind of thing.”

“Well, that really doesn’t explain Hairy Sue then.” Wendy smirked, like she’d blown the conversation wide open.

I cleared my throat and dug in my purse for a smoke and my cell. “Yeah, but she was a whore in addition to a yeti, so…”

“The yetis targeted Johnny a year ago. They needed someone high-profile enough to make their bloody point and he certainly would have fit the bill. I’m probably moving to the top of their list now.” Vance chuckled a bit and then stopped, face souring.

I scooted my chair closer to Gil, puffing away and scrolling through my videos for the perfect entertainment. “Have I ever shown you this?”

I pulled up the clip of Absinthe working Wendy like a leather chew toy.

“Ew.” He shivered.

Vance winced.

“Nice, Amanda. I swear to God, you think you’d be worried about karma or something.” Wendy picked a piece of coffee grounds off her tongue.

“I’m through worrying.”

Gil patted my leg. “What’ll you do now?”

I looked at him, suddenly confused.

“Now that the money’s probably going to be tied up with lawyers and such.” He nodded, like that would help me understand what he was saying. “The money from the show?”

“That’s not necessarily true,” I defended.

He shrugged. “You should write a book.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Do.”

“I will.”

The End…except for…

Appendix

(Even better, an Adolescent Appendix
*
) Let’s call it…

Amanda Shutter, Juvenile Delinquent

This one time—I think it was my thirteenth birthday, but I could be wrong—Ethel and the guy she was hotboxing that week, Burt Friendly, of Friendly AC and Heating Supply Superstore, decided it would be nice for the three of us to celebrate my birthday without the pesky annoyance of friends or gifts. So thoughtful. We got stuck at Benihana, at a table with two drunken marines—one of them wore a scar like a permanent part in his hairline, the other was missing his front teeth
¹⁰⁴
—and a tight-assed married couple. At the farthest edge of the grill table sat the couple’s son. About my age, probably a couple of years older, but all you really need to know is this: he was hot, in that grungy, patched-army-jacket, eyelids-heavy-with-too-much-sexual-knowledge, kind of way.
¹⁰⁵

It was the kind of grouping that could only end badly…and in front of a strange Japanese chef with sharp spatulas.

Burt Friendly introduced himself and gave everyone his card, not the one for his business, but his special “swinger” card, because “you folk look like you enjoy a good time.” The marines examined it and laughed, but the kid’s parents were wide-eyed with shock, staring at the card as though Burt had handed over some hardcore scat porn. I glanced at my mother, attempting to shame him and put a stop to this horror, but she simply lit up a cigarette and used it as a sizzling baton to motion the waitress over.

“I’ll have one of those tiki jobbies,” she demanded. “And make it strong, I know how you nippers like to cheat the round eyes.”

I sunk in my chair and dug up the courage to sneak a glance at the sexy hoodlum. His eyes smoldered in my direction, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Whether it was at my mother’s remark—I hoped not—or his parents’ discomfort was arguable. Then he did the unthinkable, he parted his lips a bit and winked.

It was a quick wink, more of a flutter really, and even though I wasn’t sure it had actually happened, I looked away and pretended to be interested as the chef lit shit up and chopped a shrimp into eight little tasters with maniacal abandon. I figured the longer I averted my gaze, the more he might think I’d missed his first volley.

I was wrong.

The boy was still ogling me.

He winked again, the way an old man might, mouth agape and tongue probing the corner. The only thing he missed was the newspaper to peep around and an overcoat hiding his pasty nakedness. Now, I thought, he’s just trying to gross me out.

I mouthed, “Are you high?”

He shrugged, picked up his bowl of miso soup and darted his tongue in and out of the salty broth like he was the second coming of Burt Friendly.
¹⁰⁶

“You can take your card back, sir!” his mother shouted with venom, breaking the moment.
¹⁰⁷
Her hair didn’t move a centimeter as she whipped her head around, the whole thing encased in a web of Aqua Net so thick I thought I could see the strands. “We’re not interested in your filthy disgusting godless lifestyle.” Her head whipped toward her bug-eyed husband, busy slicking back a spike with freakishly long fingers. “Are we, Harold?”

He shook his head and looked at his son.

“Speak for yourselves.” The boy’s grin was punctuated by a circle of spring onion, stuck to his front tooth like a scarlet letter—“O” for “obnoxious,” or maybe “O” for “Oh my God, what a dickhead.”

I didn’t point it out.

Burt snapped the card back with a shrug and passed it instead to the marines with a wink. “There’s an extra for you, then.”

They launched into fits of drunken laughter at the undoubtedly vulgar words. Ethel slapped Burt’s arm as if to chastise him, but then whispered something in his ear, stood up and swaggered in the direction of the restrooms.

The man leaned back, hands slipping across the yoke of his sailing shirt and drummed his chest as he eyed my mother’s ass, which, of course, kneaded under the thin silk skirt with all the tasteless freedom a lack of panties provides.

“I think the little lady needs a hand with her powder puff, if you catch my drift.” He pushed away from the table and followed.

I might have blushed just then, if I hadn’t seen it coming. In thirteen years of birthdays, Christmases, Halloweens, and Memorial Days (especially Memorial Days—mother loved uniforms), Ethel had yet to let an occasion pass that didn’t somehow involve her getting her rocks off. That she’d do it at the risk of my public embarrassment seemed to be a parental requirement, though where she got her advice on the matter was less Dr. Spock than
Penthouse Forum
. Instead, I reached for the closest tiki cup and drained the sweet red brew. It went down smooth, like Hawaiian Punch or something, only warmer.

I glanced back at the boy. His face changed; his mouth agape, as if it were even possible to shock such a little perv. Our eyes met briefly and I thought he flinched, until he brought his hand up to his mouth and imitated a blowjob, his tongue working a pulsing bulge in the opposite cheek.

“Bastard,” I mouthed.

His parents grimaced, but not the two crewcuts. They were ribbing each other and whispering. The one with the scar got up shortly after and followed Burt through the gap between the sizzling tables. A moment later, Toothless Grin stumbled behind him, excusing himself slovenly.

The woman’s face scrunched up in disgust once more, as though someone had dropped a dog turd in her sukiyaki. She shifted her chair toward Harold’s and focused on the chef, who’d begun the ritual rice ball toss.

The boy was first and as expected, he snapped it out of the air like a great white shark on a seal. Harold opened his maw wide and the gluten-o-fun plopped right in there with a wet thunk. The woman declined politely and refused to make eye contact with the chef.

I hadn’t really paid much attention to the tall chef. He was younger than I expected, maybe twenty-two, with a chiseled jaw and a twitch of mischief in his dark eyes. His mouth curled at the ends as he juggled the last rice ball on the end of his spatulas.

“You next.” He nodded in that shy way I’d never thought was sexy before that moment.

And then he did it too.

He winked.

I must have gasped because the next thing I remember, the rice had clogged the back of my throat and I was shaking in my seat, struggling for air, with tears streaming down my birthday cheeks. It was the sexy chef that Heimliched me. Three strong pumps and the rice launched across the table and stuck to the boy’s forehead like a mucus-covered bendi.

He held me for a minute more, hands lingering beneath my breasts. I closed my eyes and felt his breath against my neck. It would have been an actual “moment” if the combination of the tiki drink, the miso and the abdominal assault hadn’t made me so queasy.

In the next second, three things happened.

One, the waitress, who really should have had us kicked out after Ethel’s racist comment, dropped a bowl of green tea ice cream in front of me with a candle sticking out of it. She smiled wanly and bowed, as behind her a gathering of Japanese in kimonos began to sing their version of the birthday song, with all the extra syllables they could fit in, it seemed.

Two, Burt Friendly burst from the women’s bathroom with his pants hula-hooping around one ankle like a field day activity. With each pass, he maneuvered the cotton hazard with an awkward little hop and shuffle, his rosy prick bouncing amidst a mass of gray pubic hair like a festive Christmas homage.
¹⁰⁸
The act made all the more perversely ridiculous by the fact that he had hold of Toothless Grin’s throat the whole while, screaming about courtesy and recognizing receptive holes. They toppled over each other in a mangle I hesitate to refer to as “homoerotic” as it was neither manly nor sexy, unless you count the moment where Toothless caught Burt’s scrotum in the snaggle of his teeth and bore down.
¹⁰⁹

Ethel prowled out behind them, straightening her skirt and barely registering the scandalous actions of her “boyfriend.” Scarhead loped in her wake, a dim grin spread across his mouth like melted butter. He followed close enough that I thought maybe my mother had found a replacement for Burt. No big loss there.
¹¹⁰

Three, I puked my guts out all over the teppanyaki griddle—a lot. It sputtered and popped like water in a grease fire, specking the boy, his parents, the cute chef and the choir of waitresses and busboys with scalding puke. They pushed away from the table en masse, some vomiting themselves, others bumping into other diners, smearing them with the mix of bile and bean sprouts. Screams and bilious retching vied for loudest expression. The family stalked out of the room, presumably to find the manager. Only the boy lingered, slipping his hand into his pocket and jotting down a note, which he jogged back and delivered into my palm with another wink.

Come to think of it. Not that bad of a birthday.

Burt Friendly leaned against the doorframe, his house shoe dangling from his raised foot like a scuba flipper and his bulk blocking my way from the bathroom. His robe was open around his chest and the untrimmed thatch of hair grew wild and gray. Old growth. He reached up and closed his robe a bit, mostly, I’m sure, to note that he’d seen my gaze linger.

Not that I was looking for any other reason than it was open to critique. ’Cause I was totally grossed out. Totally.

Especially about the port wine stain that fanned out across his chest like a sex flush, not that I knew what that was back then, but I’m not writing this back then, I’m writing it now.
¹¹¹

“Did you have a nice shower?” he asked, looking down his slender nose.

“That’s an inappropriate question, Burt.” It was too.

His lip curled and eyes steadily examined my face for some sign I might—what—be as slutty as my mother? Be receptive to his come-hither glances?

Fat chance.

“It’s all in your perspective, I suppose.” He withdrew into the shadows of the hall, the bathroom light refracting off the mirror and lighting his eyes up like a mask. I slipped past, but slowly, there was no way Friendly would think he intimidated me in the least. Now if he’d grabbed my ass, or pushed me back into the room, I wouldn’t have felt too smart.

I listened for the door to close, for a slim piece of wood to separate us before I closed my own door and slipped the chair from my writing desk up under the knob. If that incident had been an isolated thing, I might not have reacted the way I did.

But the glances were too frequent, as was the “accidental” brushing up against me in the halls, kitchen, entryway—anywhere small, really. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to diagnose Burt’s sex addiction, the business cards were proof enough. I mean, really, where does one even get swinger cards?

I found the tangle of extension cords in one of the boxes of Christmas decorations, just under the handmade felt tree skirt with a patchwork of quilted letters spelling out “Santa’s a Corporate Whore.” The ball of wire was like a tumor, growing every year with my mother’s laziness. She’d simply toss a new cord into the mix and inexplicably, like socks making a run for it through the dryer vent, they seemed to magically entwine themselves.

Like a miracle, only irritating as hell.

Wrestling with the knots took a good week. After I freed a cord, I’d run it down the hall, see how far it would go, then pull it back before anyone could see what I was doing. We had a plush enough carpet that I was able to tuck the cord under the molding without it being noticeable. It took four of them, end to end, to reach the bathroom. One more, almost reached the tub.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Maybe you do and maybe you don’t.

Unless you thought I was trying to kill the guy, then…yeah, you’d be right.

That last cord was a real bitch, like sailors had worked on it day and night under threat of the plank. And it had to be the exact one I needed, beige plastic. By the time I loosed it, my fingers were raw and purpled and ached like I’d been clinging to a ledge. But the effort brought the whole plan home.

The open end of the cord dangled a few inches above the floor of the tub. Burt never took baths so, I figured why bother hunting down another tan wire for what would essentially be overkill in the electrified drizzle of a shower. I stood to admire my handiwork.

I felt his breath bristle the hairs on the back of my neck and nearly jumped into the tub.

“Are you gonna take a bath or just stare at it?” he asked, trading places with me.

I was halfway down the hall and ready to plug in the cord when I realized Burt had upped the ante on his sexual harassment and left the bathroom door open a crack. The water gurgled and sputtered against the shower curtain and I couldn’t resist peeking. Not to see him naked or anything; that would be gross. Just to see what he was up to.

What I saw was a glimmer of hope.

Burt stood at the counter, a ribbon of condoms trailing from his fist down the side of the cabinet. In his other hand, he pinched a sewing needle. One after another he pierced the centers of the rubbers, threading the metallic squares over the needle like an accordion bellows.

Somebody wanted kids.

Or a wife.

Or something else.

I shuffled back to my room and thought about it a bit as I sat on my bed and pulled at the carpet with my toes. But the more I thought, the more it escaped me. Why would Burt want to get Ethel pregnant? Assuming she still could get pregnant, that is? There’d certainly be no advantage to it. In fact, she hated kids—that part was obvious—and would probably abort.

Or at least, let’s hope she would. I couldn’t stomach to watch a sister or brother endure the trauma that was Ethel.

I decided I needed another perspective.

I glowered at the scrap of soy sauce–stained napkin the boy had pushed into my palm like it was a wad of dirty chewing gum. It was a phone number, obviously, with his name scraggled below in an ugly shaky cursive.

Geoffrey.

He didn’t even have the decency to shorten it to Geoff, or spare me the pretention of the old English spelling. The effs sprawled across the note like pin-up girls. I was pretty sure I hated the kid, so it came as a bit of a surprise—even to me—when I poked the number into the phone.