Black Hole (8 page)

Dave is notorious for bare-hand catching a bases-loaded line drive at third base. It broke one of his fingers, but he still stepped on third and threw to second for a triple play. His secret? He was geeked out of his mind on a number of drugs. He told me later that he didn't see the ball until it was right in front of his face, but it was floating in slow motion like a fist-sized piece of popcorn.

Dave's made over a hundred million dollars in salaries over the
years, and, unlike many of his peers, he's made even more than that in his investments, both legal and otherwise. Laundromats, car washes, dog groomers, landscapers, tattoo shops, janitorial services, and apartment buildings cover the income from drugs, illegal furs and hides, and exotic animal importing.

You'll read stories about a boxer who owns a lion or a pop star who has his own giraffes. You can't just go down to the pet store and pick one up. You can't score a walrus in the park like a bag of weed. Sure, you can find a boa constrictor or maybe a ferret, but if your girlfriend wants a baby jaguar for her birthday, you're going to need someone with connections.

Now, a lot of people will ask why a guy who's made hundreds of millions still wants to live a life of crime. Well, the answer is, you don't get it. If you have to ask, you're not the kid of person who would understand or even accept the answer.

The man was a criminal before he was a pro ballplayer, and that's what he'll be when his body and the finest chemical science fail him. The baseball salary is only a nice cover for a massive financial empire.

Then there are the assholes who will ask what you could possibly spend that much money on. Whatever the fuck you want. What have you ever wanted? Do you want Beyoncé to sing at your birthday party? Do you want to sit in Spike Lee's seat at the Knicks game? Do you want to fuck the girls from
The Facts of Life
? Everything has a price. You may not get it, but if you have the money, people are open to negotiation.

But my dealing, of course, is with a truckload of whales. I have a truckload of dwarfed, cloned whales, and I need to move them fast, for cash, to someone who has the ability to sell off a dozen whales and doesn't care if they're legal or not.

Dave lives in a huge house in Fremont. Fremont's not what you think of when you think of multimillionaires or mansions. Most people in the Bay Area only know Fremont as a last stop on a particular BART line. Few people have been there who don't already live there.

We're met at the door by a man who I think used to be a lineman for the Raiders. His face looks like it's been hit by a shovel and healed over on a regular basis. There are thick, deep, faded scars across his eyebrows and his nose. He takes us down to the gym, where Dave is lifting.

Dave's gym looks like any chain gym, but he's the only one here. Cardio machines, free weights, the whole deal.

So, little man, what you thinking on price for these whales?

Got a dozen whales at a hundred K per. So I'm thinking six hundred wholesale.

If they was legit, maybe. I was thinking a hundred for the lot.

No fucking way.

You want to unload these fast?

I could sell one for that.

If they was legit, maybe.

These may be the last ones, ever. I'll go four hundred.

I have three hundred thousand in cash, here. You can walk out of here with it right now. It's half of what you were thinking, I know, but time is of the essence. And that's plenty to get you to wherever you're going. Truck included.

Deal,
I say.

He sends a text. The Raider-butler arrives with three briefcases.

This is more money than I've ever seen in my life.

Dave gets a text. He looks at it and laughs. He holds it out to me. It's the video of Andy.

Look at this. Crazy motherfucker covered in shit.

WHERE TO GO

THE MAIN PROBLEM
with this much ill-gotten funds is where to put it. Where can you stash it that other people won't take it? I can't travel the world with three suitcases full of cash. I can't clear customs with it. I can't throw it in the luggage rack of a greyhound. Right?

How do you sleep with the fear of someone taking a stash off you that big? I can't carry that around like Gollum's ring. It will be the end of me. It will make me crazy.

I have to invest it. But I can't leave a trail, either. So I have to invest it in something like a pot farm. Something else illegal that will pay off in the long run. Something that will give me an allowance and let me live the underground life to which I've become so accustomed.

But for now, I have money to spend and drugs to do. Life is good when you have money and drugs.

I buy a van from some jackass on Craigslist. Says it's his old band van. It's covered in stickers and has seen some miles. But it's big and it's American and it will blend in well enough in any city. There's a loft bed in the back with the idea that gear can go down underneath it, which is also the perfect hiding place for the cash. And there's no way that this guy can be sober long enough to report me if my face pops up anywhere.

I am now a man who lives in a van. I've come to that point in my life when living in a vehicle sounds like a good option. This
is fucked up. But it's the best way to go right now until the heat dies down.

The back of a van is a womb. The belly of the whale. All that. It's a sanctuary from everything. The world. Cops. Success. Ambition.

Maybe I'll just drive until the money runs out. From here to there, one rest stop to another Walmart parking lot, little towns across America where they still look up to a guy who just says fuck it, I'll drive around in a van forever.

My only hesitation is the sex. I don't want to be stuck having sex only with women who will fuck guys who live in vans. That's a whole different world. I've lived in some real shitholes, but at least they had addresses and mailboxes. And hell. Somewhere to piss. A lady would have to make quite a few concessions to spend a night in the Dodge with me.

It's small, but it's home. And they'll never find me here.

I come out of a blackout as coke is coming up my nose. I'm in a bathroom of somewhere. Not sure where I am; it's a bar or club or something. Not sure. Looks familiar, but that doesn't mean anything.

I come out of the stall. I know this place. It's the Dog House, an all-night dance party south of Market. It also caters to a dom-sub clientele that's about being super nice and loving to your “dogs.” It's not the humiliation kind of thing with the slave set. It's kinder and gentler, but it keeps the collars and the leashes and the chains. But some owners just love to spoil their dogs.

I'm wearing a VIP wristband, so there's no way I'm hanging out with the pedestrians on the floor. There's a mashup playing of “Blue Monday” and “Regulate.” I get through the crowd of
eyes and teeth glowing in the black lights, the Day-Glo hair, and the textural bliss of a mass of people. I must be really high. Forcing my way through the crowd feels like fucking.

The VIP area is full of owners at tables chatting with their dogs sitting on the floor. The dogs aren't wearing much: briefs only in the case of the boy dogs, which most of them are, and briefs and halter tops for the girl dogs. They don't talk, but they look dumbly happy at me as I walk by. I find an empty table and sit.

I check my phone. Messages and texts from the roommate, many more from former coworkers and MiniWhale clients. A detective handling the murder case. The texts are coming in as I look at them. There are hundreds of them. Shit is blowing up.

A lady owner approaches with a pair of little people dogs. She asks to sit. She says something. I just nod my head, but I can't hear.

CHUCK?
she yells.
DO YOU REMEMBER ME?

It's Liza, a dancer I had a thing for when I first moved here. We had sex once. I had wanted it since I first saw her, and then it was like nothing when it happened. Didn't feel like a fucking thing. I was embarrassed. I thought I sucked in bed or something, a lousy lay. A few weeks went by. Found out through her friends that she really liked me and was mad that I never called her back. I had no idea why she would like me. But I blew it, and I think about it all the time.

LIZA.

YES. ARE YOU INTO THIS SCENE? YOU DON'T HAVE A DOG.

HONESTLY I DON'T KNOW HOW I GOT HERE. WHAT ABOUT YOU?

THESE AREN'T MINE. I'M A DOGSITTER FOR THIS OLD GAY COUPLE.

I WONDERED.

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING?

MOST LIKELY.

I search my pockets. About time for an inventory. In my jacket, there's a Pomade tin. I open it. It's full of coke.

JESUS CHRIST, CHUCK.

She takes it, taps a little out, and cuts it into lines. I look around. I don't know who's watching. She rolls up a bill.

CALM DOWN. YOU LOOK TOTALLY PARANOID.

You're not paranoid if they're really after you.

She snorts half a line with one nostril, then switches nostrils and inhales the other. She hands me the bill. I should say no, but I don't. I can't feel my face. I took some kind of painkiller before this, from the feeling of things.

Halfway up my nose, I feel my heart punching my ribcage. Fuck. Too much. I do the other nostril. I have to keep things even. I need to come down though. I look up. Liza's playing with my marble.

DON'T FUCK WITH THAT.

WHAT IS IT? A GOOD LUCK CHARM?

CAN WE GET OUT OF HERE?

She pauses. Her face goes blank, then confused, then happy.

YES.

I follow her through a succession of strobe lights, black lights, and fog. I can't feel my feet. I see all these women dressed in '70s punk makeup, Siouxsies and such—must be some kind of retro thing coming back. I like it. None of them make eye contact with me. Just like the punk girls I remember.

As soon as we make it outside, I'm cold and my ears are
ringing. There's a mist falling, a foggy damp towel freezing my bones. It shocks me with momentary sobriety. I feel a pull.

This way,
she says.

The little pups pull her in their harnesses toward the car. They're in a hurry. No wonder, they're almost naked.

It's so weird running into you,
she says, checking her phone as we scurry down the sidewalk.

Oh my god,
she says.
So gross
.

She hands me her phone. It's the Andy video. I hand it back to her.

Saw it already.

We get to an SUV. She opens the door and whistles. The dogs scramble in.

How did you get here?
she asks.

I don't know,
I say.

She laughs.
You are a funny guy.

We're at some queer house in Twin Peaks. Old-school SF homo. Not any of this new-money, high-tech bullshit. This belongs to some daddy from way back. Probably bought this for a hundred K back in the early '80s.

The place is immaculate but outdated. Still, it's a welcome sight compared with the IKEA nightmares going on now. Tom of Finland prints hang in the living room. There's a trophy case in the corner from some kind of Castro contest, and there's a leather hat hanging on the one of the trophies. Pictures of men in chaps and whisk-broom mustaches. There's a big-screen TV, but it's old, one of those things that weighs a god damn ton, with a VCR and tapes of all the old classics like
Auntie Mame
and
The Rose.

The dogs immediately run for the sofa. Liza yells at them, and they scamper away.

Do you have to walk them, too?

They shit in the toilet, if that's what you're asking.

Yeah, that's what I'm asking.

Liza puts on a record. It takes a minute. It's
Jesus Christ Superstar
or
Hair
or some other '70s musical soundtrack.

I take out the marble and my pipe.