Mystery Girl: A Novel (23 page)

Lonsky shrugged. “Perhaps he felt strongly enough to die for whatever he was protecting. Perhaps they killed him too soon or pushed him too far. Psychopathic torturers are not known for their patience. And there is one other, unfortunate possibility.”

“What’s that?”

He looked me level in the eye. “Perhaps he did talk, as you say you would have, and gave up the goods. But when his tormentors went to find the tapes, they were gone.”

58

NEXT I NEEDED TO DRESS
. Solar conferred with Mrs. Moon, and in short order I emerged from the Lonsky home in a spare pair of Mrs. Lonsky’s bright red elastic-waisted pants, which reached, culottes-style, about halfway down my shins, and one of Solar’s own shirts, which swamped me in every dimension, huge cuffs and collar flapping and the bottom hanging down my thighs. It was belted with kitchen twine. (The ladies’ belts were too small, and Lonsky’s useless.) As for my feet, Mrs. Moon herself kindly donated a pair of yellow-and-black quilted slippers with white ankle socks.

Although I was loath to appear before Milo in this getup (I smiled masochistically, imagining his sadistic glee), duty trumped pride: I
had to tell him about the killing. I tried calling but he didn’t pick up. It was after one. He’d be closing the shop, so I drove east on Beverly to Silver Lake Boulevard, skirted the black reservoir, and cut back right onto Glendale Boulevard. It was as I turned the corner that I saw the flames.

I had to stop my car up the block. Fire trucks and cop cars blocked the street, and folks stood around in clusters, watching the show. Even then it took a minute to register: this furnace coughing smoke was once Milo’s video shop, and MJ’s old bookstore, and Jerry’s apartment upstairs. Jerry! In a sudden panic I rushed forward, through the crowd, past the cops, and over the hoses. No one tried to stop me, no one even noticed, but still when I got halfway across the lot I stopped myself. What could I do?

“Kornberg!”

It was Milo, standing in the shadows. His clothes were smudged, his face was dirty. He had gauze around his hands.

“Milo! Fuck! Are you OK? What happened? How is Jerry?”

“He’s all right. I had to carry the old fucker. He’s at the hospital now though, to be on the safe side.”

“What happened?”

“Everything was fine. The screening broke up. I was making the copies. All of a sudden I heard this like
whoosh
from the back room. Then I saw the fire. I got everybody out then ran upstairs.” We both looked at the shop, a baked and cracking skull. Firemen shot hoses into a black toothless mouth, while smoke rose from the eyes.

“Poor Jerry. He must be devastated.”

Milo shrugged. “The shop was doomed anyway. He knew it. He’d been trying to find someone to buy the collection, but no one would promise to take it all. Now the insurance will pay off. And I got his films out from upstairs, his personal stash, so he can sell that to collectors. Shit. He’s better off. Now he can kick back and die in luxury. I didn’t get the copies of Zed’s films though. Sorry. Those are gone,” Milo rasped, as he did after too many bong hits. He spat on the ground.

“I’m the one who’s fucked,” he went on. “I’m out of a job. I would have been better off the other way around, if Jerry croaked and the shop lived. I would have inherited everything. I’m the goddamn executor.”

I smiled. This is why I loved and admired Milo above all my friends. He’d carried that old man out on his back, then run back and forth through a burning house to save the history of cinema. But now, with the danger passed, he insisted on being a prick just out of principle. I’d hug him, but he’d never stand for it. “What can I do?”

He reached into the plastic bag at his feet and pulled out a six-pack. “Open one of these bitches for me. And the Funyons. I can’t with these fucking bandages.” He looked me over, as if for the first time, and smiled. “And why are you dressed like a circus clown? Are you trying to cheer me up?”

59

I KEPT MILO COMPANY
till morning, standing in the lot and then sitting on his hood, until the last flames were extinguished. While dawn broke, firemen stomped about, crunching glass, spraying foam in corners, and poking with hooked sticks, as if making sure each and every item was thoroughly trashed before ending the party. I told him about Kevin and he listened grimly. The idea that the burning of the video store might be connected seemed both blatantly there before us and totally impossible, a mirage. It represented a slide into the life of Lonsky’s mind, a land where coincidence was itself proof of connection, where merely having a thought was a clue that something hid beneath it, where denial was confirmation, where the most audacious idea, the worst fear, and the worst desire were always true, and where the most intellectually advanced and logically rigorous thought approached magic and madness. Neither of us was quite ready to go there yet, at least not out loud.

That was when I noticed the biker. He was the only other spectator remaining, still astride his bike, a worn meerschaum pipe stuck into the middle of the huge fuzzy beard, from which he occasionally belched smoke. He had long dark hair under a blue bandanna, a leather jacket, dirty jeans, boots. His bike looked like a Harley, or some big American make, but it was hard for a layman like me to say since it was stripped and painted, dull black tank, chrome fittings, and no logos or marks of any kind. Had he been in the crowd at the screening? Could he be the arsonist, if there was an arsonist, enjoying the glory of his crime? It seemed a bit much. But still I got the creeps when, as if feeling my own gaze on him, he turned and caught my eye. He grinned broadly, smoke curling from that dark thatch. I remembered the devil’s kiss from Zed’s movie, those nude supplicants loving that other hairy orifice. My stomach turned, and I felt the predawn chill. He mounted his bike, kicked it alive, and cleared its throat in a long rumble that drew everyone’s eyes before he popped the clutch and screeched away, the sound rising to a whine as he streaked up the hill and was gone.

I offered to accompany Milo elsewhere, his place or mine, but he wanted to swing by the hospital and check on Jerry, then crash. So I got in my car and drove home through the clear morning air, still lost in my internal smoke and darkness. I suppose that’s why I didn’t notice that the lamp beside my front steps was out, or that my shades were down, or that anything was amiss at all until I stepped inside and shut the door behind me and flipped on the light.

I’d been robbed. Or wrecked. Home-invaded. The place was trashed. Furniture was overthrown, my books unshelved and scattered. Couch cushions had been gutted and their stuffing blown, pictures pulled from the wall and smashed. I gawked stupidly, stepping through the kitchen, over broken plates and food pulled from the pantry, things from deep back that I didn’t even know I’d had: canned navy beans and instant miso soup and a bag of flour, exploded in the center of the table like a white star. Then I heard movement,
a rustle and a breath, like someone creeping around in my study. I picked up the cleaver.

“Who’s there?” I yelled, my voice quaking and quacking more than I would have prefered. I yelled again, more assertively. “Come out of there right now! I’m calling the cops.”

That’s when a voice answered, small and soft: “Please don’t,” and the dead girl stepped from the shadows and into the room.

“Hello, Mona,” I said. “Welcome back.”

PART V

THE MISRECOGNITIONS

60

FIRST OF ALL, MY NAME’S
not Mona. Or Ramona. I’m Veronica Flynn. I never even heard of Mona Doon or Naught or anything till a few weeks ago and I swear I had nothing to do with anybody’s death. And your house was like this when I got here. The door was open so I came in and hid just to wait for you. I don’t know who did it. But I suspect it was them. The people who hired me. But I don’t know their names or who they are or why. I don’t know anything. OK. I’ll start at the beginning but you have to promise not to call the cops and you have to put down that knife. Like I said, my name’s Veronica, but I never liked it so I go by Nica or my friends call me Nic. My mother named me after Veronica Lake, of course. That’s my mom all over. Living in fantasy. I don’t know much about my dad. He died young and drunk, car crash. Though later I heard her say on the phone he’d moved back to Albania. My mom was always busy working, mostly waiting tables, or sewing at this tailor’s or working at this cracker factory, we’d have closets full of crackers, or else chasing her latest loser boyfriend, a bunch of drunks and gamblers and assholes who hit on me as I got older, but for some reason she always thought they would be good influences. She was obsessed with the movies, especially old movies. She’d convince me to stay up and watch the late show with her, even when I was a little kid on school nights, or rent a couple of videos and eat pizza. She’d see anything really, but old movies were the best. The old stars. She hung on to that fantasy, that glamour and love and beauty. I guess I loved the
movies too and just being with her, like any kid would, but as I got older I realized not only was it a ridiculous fantasy but those women on the screen didn’t even get to live it either. Most of them ended up no better off than my mom. Grace Kelly became a princess of course but then died in a wreck. Kate Hepburn nursing a drunk, waiting her whole life for a married man when she could have had anyone. Ava Gardner, unable to really love anyone till Sinatra, then unable to stand him. Elizabeth Taylor? Enough said. Judy Garland. Marilyn of course. Veronica Lake, my namesake, stunning, perfect, maybe even more perfect than Marilyn, dying drunk and alone from hepatitis. So they didn’t even escape, did they? Anyway, I wasn’t going that route. It was pathetic and early on I decided I had to get up and out for real. So I focused on school, I got A’s, and I focused on being popular, cute, whatever too, because I knew that was important. I learned how to flirt and make the boys like me. I learned what the older men my mom ran around with liked. I learned what the older women liked too, how to appeal to their mothering instinct with sob stories about my mom and her nightmare boyfriends, and how to avoid making them jealous or competitive. It all came easy I guess, though I worked hard. I studied, I held down a job, I played tennis, ran track. I got a scholarship to Harvard. At first the plan was clear, medical school, surgery maybe, maybe cosmetic surgery, help desperate women like my mother who were trying to cling to their men, help desperate men buy bigger penises, whatever. The vanity business. The fear-of-death business. Those are always good. Though looking back now, I should have known I wasn’t destined for medicine. I’m not the caretaker type. Sick people disgust me. All that whining. Once a guy I was seeing got the flu, what a baby. Laid in bed in his pajamas asking for soup and worrying about if he had pneumonia. I ditched him immediately. Another time this guy cried. Ridiculous. I couldn’t laugh in his face, he was my professor, actually crying about how long it had been since his wife touched him. Yuck. I totally lost my hard-on for him after that, though I had to string it out till the end of the semester. Most female med students are more
motherly types. They want to be GPs or OB-GYNs. My God, placating pregnant bitches all day, who could stand it? Or if they’re shy they go into research, or pediatrics. Not me. I hate kids. That’s why I had my tubes tied. Yes, I said, tubes, when I was eighteen. First-year biology just confirmed what I’d always known, sex is a trick. It’s all just an evolutionary con game designed to ensure the survival of the species and of your own genes. So men feel driven to spread their seed and women go into heat when they’re around suitable males and release pheromones, like a cloud of perfume that sucks men in, like that cookie smell they pump into the mall. Pleasure is the bait, orgasms are the trick that lures us, women especially, into slavery, motherhood, and a lifetime of servitude to men. Because in female brains, lust combines with another chemical change, another programmed instinctual response that binds us to our offspring long enough for them to mature, again ensuring the genotype continues. Same reason we have the whining gene, the ability of babies to screech in a way that forces us to wake up and feed them or keep them warm or whatever, instead of just sleeping peacefully while they die. We have the cuteness gene. Why are we programmed to adore tiny soft cuddly creatures with big eyes who goo and gaw? So that we won’t just eat them or step on them or throw them in the trash. Otherwise puppies and kitties and babies wouldn’t stand a chance in this world, would they? They’d be snacks. That’s what binds women to their offspring and men to their families, but of course, once the women have children their brain chemistry shifts, and the primary bond is with the child now, and they lose interest in the husband, except as a provider and protector. As a sexual partner, a stud, he’s served his purpose: providing sperm. Do you think that’s what happened to your wife? She realized you were subpar breeding material? No offense. I don’t mean sexually, we fucked and you’re normal enough as far as that goes, but how are you in the providing-and-protecting department? I mean, let’s face it, there’s not much of a future in literature is there? She had to trade up while she could. So she moved on. Sorry. I’m not saying I feel that way, because obviously
I’m not looking to breed. And I’d rather have my own money. So that’s why I tied my tubes. Because I’d always been promiscuous. I liked sex. It was pleasurable, it was exciting, it relaxed me and got rid of my tension and it’s good for the organism, for the blood pressure, skin, muscles. But I wasn’t falling for the love trap. That’s for losers. Anyway, that’s how I got into porn. I liked sex, I liked money, and I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend or hubby. It started at Harvard. Competition was a lot stiffer than in high school. Academically I had all the other strivers to worry about. I had the scholarship kids, the financial aid kids, the minorities, the disadvantaged, the black and Latino ghetto kids with something to prove, the Asian or Indian kids whose families worked twenty-four hours a day running a minimart so they could be doctors. It wasn’t even enough to make A’s. You had to win things, edit things, compete. Then there was the social status competition, which I knew mattered just as much, the style and snobbery competition with the rich white kids whose parents paid top dollar or donated something. The legacies, whose great-granddads went. They were dopes. Fools. George Bush types who could barely read. But I knew that they would still inherit all the money and privilege and I had to win them over too, fit in with them or I’d be their servant. That took money, for clothes, trips, restaurants, whatever. I couldn’t be slaving at some work-study job, making minimum wage. I needed real money, like the girls who drove Beamers and took private golf lessons. I couldn’t care less about these things. Those girls were just husband hunting, but if I wanted to rise in their world, I needed the equipment. So I started stripping. It was easy money. I knew how to manipulate men by then of course, I’d been doing it my whole life. But the hours were tough, late nights before early class and I was worried: how long before some frat fucks from campus wandered in and recognized me? I wore wigs, makeup, learned to disguise myself even when nude. I made the grades, in class and on laps, but by the time I graduated it was clear I wasn’t going to be a doctor. Also my Mom had passed away, from breast cancer, and I needed to make a living. Plan B was B-school, an MBA. I
would focus on biotech stocks. But I couldn’t afford grad school, at least not the brand names that would get me in the door. So I had the idea to go into porn. I’d always watched a lot of porn. I liked the nasty stuff. Girls getting used like trash by assholes and big-dick retards. I knew I could do what they could. I was an athlete. Plus I hated the cold. I was sick of the Northeast. And I guess part of me was still drawn to Hollywood because of my mother and the old movies. Though of course it’s all gone now. Just like traces remain. Like the old mansion Jayne Mansfield bought on Sunset and painted all pink, forty rooms and a heart-shaped pool, for a bad marriage to a bodybuilder that didn’t last. It’s still there. I think some Arab owns it now. Or the Mormons or Scientologists. Even the movies are nothing now. The actresses aren’t mythic creatures, they don’t have that charisma, they’re just cute little operators, like me I suppose. There are no real stars. Except in porn. In porn everyone is a star, have you noticed? The trashiest, most disposable tramp is a star. Or starlet. No one is in a supporting role, except the men. They are props, literally. Tools used for performing a job. Like a wrench. So anyway, I got a couple names from the manager at my club and went west. My plan was to make a lot of money and invest in stocks online, get out in a couple years with enough to go to school debt-free, maybe even with a house or a condo. Well, the first part went OK. I was indeed a natural at the porn business. Maybe I even kind of overdid it, like fifty movies in two years. Maybe you saw me? I acted under the name Candy Apples? I won some awards.
Weapons of Ass Destruction
won Best Anal. I play like a female Rambo named Bimbo, oiled up and in torn clothes. I get captured and tortured by the enemy and forced to play Russian Roulette with their dicks. I know, right, that was
Deer Hunter,
but it kind of like jumped around to a lot of Vietnam movies for inspiration. We did a sequel
Bimbo 2: First Pud.
What about
Two and a Half Men and One Slut?
That one had two twin brothers, a dwarf, and me.
The Whorin’ Identity,
where I wake up and I don’t know my name but have an amazing talent to deep throat and there’s a butt plug in my bottom with a bank account number on it?
What else?
Sex Toy Story
was cool, though the 3-D sucked. I did a fetish specialty picture,
Phallus in Underwearland.
A Western,
True Slit,
with Rooster Cockring. I suppose there was a certain psychological draw as well. I sort of liked the life, the attention, the adventure, the cheesy glamour, and the power in a way. I was their fantasy, the object of their desires, and there is a lot power and pleasure in that. It’s an escape from yourself. But the magic wears off quick. It’s tough work, believe me. And the money part didn’t work out like I expected. I’m not complaining. I own my condo in Santa Monica and my car. My teeth are all fixed. But the golden age of porn is over, as a profession I mean. With the Internet flooding the whole world in free sex. Millions of clips and films. Thousands of amateurs posting themselves for free. Chat rooms. Video hookups. Live cams. The profit margin is nowhere. I was smarter than most girls. I bought stocks and ran my own website instead of buying fake tits and a junkie guitar-playing boyfriend, but I wasn’t ever going to get rich. And I lost a lot in the market. We all did. And it’s a short career. Like all athletes. A small window. I didn’t want to be a thirty-year-old porn slut. I know it’s hard to believe but after awhile having wild sex all the time with hot people in beautiful settings for money… it gets really depressing, actually. I’d see the women who’d been at it too long, the ones who got into drugs, the nymphos who had to top themselves, push the degradation for some reason, the biggest gang bang, whatever. I didn’t want that to be me. So when the offer for private work came around, I took it. It was call girl work, basically. Super high-end. A very rich man with very elaborate fantasies. The male libido is a strange thing, the mind of a fetishistic or perhaps ritualistic fantasist is a strange thing. He’d seen my movies and was looking for a certain physical type. There were certain outfits, makeup, hair. Characters I had to play and scenarios to act out. Dialogue. I suppose I became an actress sort of. Much more than in my actual films, believe me. Maybe even closer to a real artist. But you would know more about that than me. That room where I was hiding,
is that where you write? You have a ton of books, almost all fiction, too, I noticed when I was crouched behind the desk. Yes, poetry, by fiction I meant poetry too. Yes OK philosophy and literary theory but those are sort of like fiction too, right? I mean it’s not real like science is real, is it? Not like medicine or economics or even history. Yes I saw that, but that’s art history. Art history is like the history of a fiction isn’t it? The story of a story. That just proves my point. Which is how you can be so learned and wise and know nothing about the actual real world. Like literally nothing. I mean facts. Real facts. Like how much blood is in your body or how much money is in your bank. I know both those things all the time. I bet you don’t know either, ever, do you? About 3.5 quarts. No, me. You’re bigger so like 5.5. Anyway, what I’m saying is I’m a practical girl. I’ve never seen the point of art. I prefer facts, bodies, numbers, things. Money. That’s why I took the job. A lot of money. Like thousands for a night. I saw very quickly I could pay off my debts, build my nest egg, and go to business school if I wanted. But there was more to it than that, I realize, now that I find myself in this mess. I was intrigued by the idea of living out my childhood fantasies, you know, my mother’s silly unfulfilled dreams that she instilled in me with those old movies. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in
To Catch a Thief,
Bogie and Bacall. Kate Hepburn. The porn shoots are a kind of lame fantasy, sure, but they are also a kind of realism aren’t they? They’re happening. Like documentaries. This was different. This was theater. Art. I drove to a random spot and parked my car. A limo was waiting. I climbed in. A man in the back, always the same man, my escort or manager like, very handsome and polite. He would explain the role and what I had to do for his boss very carefully. We’d drive to the location, I was blindfolded, so I never knew where, but I was led into a large bedroom with every luxury except there were no windows behind the curtains. I was provided with a costume and makeup. I’d practice my poses, my lines. Sometimes there were even written scripts and photos or drawings demonstrating exactly how