Sick City (21 page)

As Trina and Pat lay in bed smoking cigarettes, they listened to their neighbors' disembodied voices through the paper-thin motel walls. Their bodies were bathed in a luminous sheen of postcoital sweat. Trina took a long drag and then exhaled a plume of gray smoke. It curled upward, hanging momentarily in the slats of neon light creeping in through the open blinds, before it was dissipated by the twirling ceiling fan.

“That was good, Daddy,” she said. “You fucked me
good
.”

“I aim to please . . .” Pat murmured.

“You know, baby, uh, I noticed how you never try to eat my pussy”—she felt his torso stiffen when she said this, so she quickly added—“and that's cool, baby. I ain't criticizin'. You fuck me better than any man's ever fucked me. It's just that . . . well, I've been wantin' to tell you somethin', an' it's never seemed like the right time before. . . .”

“Uh-oh,” Pat growled, “sounds serious. You ain't missed your period, have you?”

Trina laughed, “Nah, baby. Nothin' like that. It's just that, uh, when I was a kid . . . well, my uncle Clay—my mom's brother—he useta live with us. After Gramma died, Clay couldn't live by himself anymore. . . . Uncle Clay was born kinda screwy, something in his genes Mom said, some kinda disorder that twisted his brain a little. Well, uh, when I was ten, Uncle Clay used to come into my room at night. At least once a week, sometimes more. An' he'd just stand there, lookin' at me. Starin'. I'd always wake up. Somethin' . . . some sixth sense would bring me 'round . . . an' there'd be Clay with his fingers to his lips saying ‘
shush
. . .' ”

Pat sucked on his Parliament, thoughtfully.

“So, Uncle Clay useta screw ya?” he asked.

“No, baby!” Trina laughed, “Jesus, you're sick! He was my
uncle
! Nah, he used to get under the sheets and shimmy up the bed toward me an' put his mouth between my legs, you know? An' just lick me . . . like a dog. I guess he'd be, uh, y'know, takin' care of himself down there . . . 'cos after ten minutes or so he'd sorta . . . stiffen up. His whole body, just tremblin' all over. Then he'd just lie there pantin' for a while. I'd lie there real still, pretendin' to be asleep. After a few minutes he'd get up, wipe himself off on the sheet, an' kinda . . . slink outta there.”

“Man. Did you ever tell your folks?”

“Oh, God, no! The first time it happened, I kinda thought that I'd dreamed it or something. I was watchin' Uncle Clay for clues at breakfast, but he was sittin' there eatin' his Capt'n Crunch like nuthin' had happened. The next time, I was too embarrassed to say nuthin'. After that . . . I guess I just kinda got useta it, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear ya . . . so what happened to Uncle Clay?”

“Nothin'. He's probably still at Mom and Dad's place, sittin' around in his underwear eatin' up all the cereal and watchin' Fox News. He useta watch that shit all day long. Motherfucker was obsessed with Bill O'Reilly, hero-worshiped him. He wrote a letter to him once, an' Bill read it out on the show, an' Uncle Clay just about creamed in his shorts.”

“So he kept it up? Sneakin' into your room at night and eatin' your pussy?”

“For a while. When I was twelve I got my period. One time he snuck into my room an' got himself a mouthful of blood, that put a stop to it. He fuckin' ran out of there, an' I heard him retchin' and brushing his teeth like crazy in the bathroom.”

“Ha. I guess ol' Uncle Clay more'n learned his lesson, huh?”

“I guess. So anyway, baby, the reason I wanted to tell you that . . . is ever since, I just can't stand to have any man put his mouth down there. It just turns me off. Leaves me cold. Bad associations, I guess.”

Pat laughed his wheezy laugh and stubbed out his cigarette. He looked over to Trina. She was staring at the ceiling, a faraway look in her eyes. He kissed her on the throat.

“Well, no offense, baby”—Pat whispered against her hot skin— “but I don't eat pussy anyway. Any man who says he enjoys eatin' pussy is either a fool or a fuckin' liar.”

He bit her neck lightly, and Trina giggled, her body breaking out in goose bumps. She took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out in a coffee cup. She exhaled long and hard.

“Is that so? Well, aren't we the match made in heaven. . . . So anything else I should know about you, baby? Any stuff you want to tell me?”

“What? Sex stuff?”

“Yeah, sex stuff. Turn-ons? Turn-offs?”

“Only two things turn me off. One is when a woman talks too much about stupid shit. Another is when a chick tries to touch my ass. An ex of mine tried to stick her finger up my ass when we was fucking. Only once. I grabbed her by her fucking wrist and told her that the next time she tried that shit she'd pull back a motherfucking stump. I may be a lot of things, baby girl, but I sure as fuck ain't nobody's bitch.”

Trina ran her hand across Pat's chest and said, “You can say that again, Daddy.”

They lapsed into a contented silence for a while. Outside a siren wailed and then faded away into night. It sounded like the city was crying. Then Trina asked, “What are you gonna do when you find him?”

“The faggot?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm gonna kill him.”

Trina buried her face in Pat's neck, sniffing at his skin. “What about Spider?” she breathed.

“You leave Spider to me, baby girl. I don't like loose ends.”

Trina didn't say anything. She continued to nuzzle Pat, before resting her cheek against his shoulder.

· · ·

“Don't worry, sweet cheeks,” Pat said. “It gets easier the second time. Just like with your uncle Clay. After a while, it becomes as natural as breathing.”

Outside, the traffic on the boulevard sounded like the roaring of some vast, distant sea. Trina clung to Pat, imagining herself adrift on its endless inky darkness, clinging to Pat to avoid being dragged under the surface. Pat stared at the ceiling fan as it went around,
thunk, thunk, thunk
, his mind squirming with thoughts of blood and retribution. A silence fell on the city for a moment—no sirens, no alarms, no Spanish curses, no breaking glass. Just the soft, steady sound of the ceiling fan. The night had declared a cease-fire. Trina huddled closer to Pat and soon she was asleep.

They were in the car outside of Rupert Du Wald's place. The radio was on, fading from some moronic top-forty rock into a news report. It was mid-afternoon, and the air-conditioning was on full-blast. Randal was smoking a cigarette and looking out the window distractedly while Jeffrey tried to fix with shaking hands. His knees were up on the dash, and he had his elbow tucked into his gut, repositioning the needle under his skin, trying to find a vein somewhere on his bruised forearm.

“Shit!” Jeffrey hissed as he withdrew the needle and a glob of blood trailed from his arm and spotted his T-shirt.

“It's four fifteen,” Randal said.

“I know it's fucking four fifteen,” Jeffrey snapped. “Stop rushing me. I'm almost done. It's a bitch to fix when you keep interrupting me.”

Randal threw the cigarette out the window and exhaled a plume of gray smoke into the balmy air. The bag with the film canister was sitting on his lap.

“Are you nervous?” Randal asked.

“Nervous? Why the fuck would I be nervous?”

“Well, the tape, man. It's make or break time.”

“I'm not afraid. I know the tape is bona fide. There's nothing to worry about as far as that goes. Oh—wait. Here we go. Got you, you fucker. . . .”

Jeffrey got the hit, slid the needle out, and put it away with the rest of his shit in the glove compartment. He closed his eyes for a moment. His voice took on that dreamy tone it got when he was high on heroin, like he was talking half asleep through a mouth wadded with cotton.

“Fuck me. That's good shit. That's almost all of Bill's China white gone now. I'm telling you, it's gonna be tough to go back to using fucking Mexican tar after getting used to this shit.”

“I thought you were gonna quit when we sell the tape? Why would you start using that shit?”

“Yeah,” Jeffrey slurred, “yeah, exactly. I'm
definitely
going to quit once we sell the tape. I mean, I've only been using this time for like, what, two weeks?”

“Jeffrey, you got out of rehab like two months ago.”

“Okay, a couple of months. I don't think I'll have copped a habit already. Maybe just a chippy little habit. No worries. . . .”

Jeffrey's head slumped toward his chest. Randal watched him for a moment, nodding silently. Then something caught his ear on the radio. He cranked the volume, rousing Jeffrey.

“What the FUCK, man?”

“Shhh!”

Dr. Michael Schwartzki, better known to his audience as the so-called recovery guru Dr. Mike, has denied any involvement in the death of Joseph Khu. Khu, who lived his life as a female named Champagne, was found dead earlier in the week in East Hollywood. The twenty-year-old was allegedly a drug addict and a prostitute. Yesterday, the
National Enquirer
went public with allegations that the drugs that killed Khu had been traced back to the doctor, and that a message left by Khu on his sister's cell phone shortly before his death suggested that Dr. Mike and the deceased had been involved in a sexual relationship. In a statement issued today via his lawyers, Dr. Mike denied all the allegations made against him by the Khu family and the tabloid press. . . .

“Jesus Christ!” Jeffrey said. “You have to be kidding me!”

“I told you something about that motherfucker was off, man. I could smell it a mile away. You can't go through life with your shirt buttoned so tight without blowing your top eventually.”

He clicked off the radio.

“Anyway, enough about that motherfucker. Let's go see this guy Rupert. What kind of a fucking name is Rupert?”

“What kind of a fucking name is Champagne?” Jeffrey laughed.

· · ·

They rang the bell and looked at each other for a moment, waiting for a response. A tiny, ancient Asian woman opened the door and peered at them.

“Yes?”

“Hello. I'm Randal, and this is Jeffrey. We're here to see Mr. Du Wald. . . .”

“Yes, Mr. Du Wald is expecting you. This way, please. . . .”

The entrance hall was huge, with two winding staircases leading off to other parts of the house. The floor and walls were constructed of what appeared to be onyx marble, giving them a translucent, fragile quality. The air was thick with the scent of orchids. Du Wald obviously had a thing for orchids, because they were everywhere: hanging from suspended pots, in vases; there were even vaguely sexual paintings of them mounted on the walls. The housekeeper led them into a main room, which had a grand piano set into a sunken floor. A huge window looked out over the city's smoggy horizon. Sitting at the piano was a strange little man holding a cocktail glass in his hand. He was short and fat, wearing a monogrammed dressing gown. He was at least seventy, and his skin was pulled back tight over his skull, giving his face a waxy, unreal look. He was wearing aviator glasses with brown-tinted lenses, and the strange head was topped off with a hairpiece that seemed—in the half-light—to be a shade of powder blue.

“Mr. Du Wald, Misters Randal and Jeffrey are here to see you. . . .”

Du Wald held his hand up, and the housekeeper was silent. As he continued to pick out notes on the piano with his free hand she turned to them and whispered, “He'll be with you in just a moment. Would you like a drink?”

Randal shook his head, and the housekeeper scurried off to some other part of the house. They watched as Du Wald put the glass of wine down on the piano and scrawled something on a piece of manuscript paper. Then he picked out a melody on the piano, singing along with gusto.

“We are the Teacup Family! Welcome to our HOOOOMMME!”
Du Wald sang in an operatic voice.

He nodded and replaced the pencil. He turned to look at Randal and Jeffrey.

“Hello,” the little man said.

“Mr. Du Wald? I'm Randal P. Earnest, and this is Jeffrey. . . .”

“Hello . . . ,” Jeffrey slurred, his eyes rolling back into his skull slightly.

“Welcome, boys! Come in! Make yourself at home. . . . Is Lilly fetching you a drink?”

“Oh, nothing for us,” Randal said.

“Yeah, we're cool . . . ,” Jeffrey said, sleepily.

“My work,” Du Wald explained, pointing to the music sheet. “Theme song for a new children's television show,
The Teacup Family
. For the English, of course. Only the English would write an entire show about the adventures of a family of teacups. . . .”

“I didn't know you were in the music game.”

“Oh, yes! My whole life. Commercial work. Movies. Television. . . . Please, sit down.”

Aside from the grand piano, and the leather corner sofa, there were several bookshelves stuffed with antique-looking hardcover books, and mounted props from the various movies and TV shows that Du Wald had worked on.

“
Murder She Wrote
. . .
Airwolf
. . .
Manimal
. . .” Du Wald recited, waving his cocktail glass around the room, “I worked on all of them at some point. . . .”

Randal's gaze was drawn to some paintings hanging behind glass. “Is that a Picasso?” He asked, peering at one of them.

“It sure is. You don't even want to know what that beauty is appraised for. Almost makes you feel sad when you think that there are people starving in this city.
Almost
, mind you. . . . But onto business, gentlemen. Mr. Rox informed me that you had something that I would be quite interested in. A piece of Sharon Tate memorabilia. Are you sure I can't get you a drink? I'm fixing one for myself. Then you can tell me all about it. . . .”

Randal looked over to Jeffrey. His chin was slumping down onto his chest again, the stoned lurch of the satiated dope fiend. Randal elbowed him in the ribs quickly, and Jeffrey jerked awake again, slurring, “What the FUCK, man?” Randal cleared his throat. Thankfully, Du Wald seemed entirely oblivious to how loaded Jeffrey was. He was standing by the bar, mixing himself a Tom Collins.

“Well,” Randal said, “it's a home movie, shot in the late sixties. An orgy at the Tate house. A kind of sixties free love, pot brownies, and acid hors d'oeuvres kind of thing. Sharon Tate, Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner, Mama Cass.”

“Uh-huh,” Du Wald said, as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. “And this is the original copy?”

“Yeah. No duplicates exist. It's been sitting in a safe for the best part of thirty years.”

“My goodness. And who owns it, exactly? You?”

Randal looked over to Jeffrey again. His head was bobbing, as if it weighed thirty pounds and his neck could no longer support it. “Yeah,” Randal carried on, “we both own it. It's a partnership.”

“And the source of the tape?”

“A contact in the LAPD, now deceased.”

“Interesting.”

Du Wald walked over to the door of the room and shouted, “Lilly! LILLY! I HAVE SOME BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO, AND I MUST NOT BE INTERRUPTED!”

A faraway voice replied, “YES, MR. DU WALD!”

Du Wald closed the door and locked it. Then he walked over to the bookshelf. Randal gave Jeffrey another dig in the ribs and hissed, “Snap out of it, fuckwad!”

“Oh, uh, shit, sorry,” Jeffrey slurred, standing up suddenly to clear his head. He saw the little old man in the robe pulling a book from the middle shelf, and as he did so, the entire bookcase popped away from the wall, revealing a hidden steel door. There was a keypad to the right of the door. Du Wald typed a sequence of numbers into the pad, and the door opened with a heavy-sounding click.

“Jesus,” Jeffrey said, “that's pretty cool.”

“This way, gentlemen. . . .”

They followed Du Wald through the door. They found themselves in what looked like a modern art gallery: a large white room, cold and sterile, with marble floors and a series of glass cases housing what looked to be a ragtag collection of junk. Du Wald walked in between the “exhibits,” throwing his arms in the air theatrically.

“Gentlemen—here are the star items in my collection! Consider yourselves lucky—you may never see the likes of these artifacts again. . . .”

They followed him for a moment, staring at the contents of the glass boxes.

“A toilet seat?” Randal said, staring at one of the items. “A gold toilet seat?”

Du Wald smiled mischievously and raised his eyebrows.

“Not just ANY toilet seat. This is the toilet seat that the King himself, Elvis Presley, died on. Did you know that nobody has been allowed into the second-floor rooms of Graceland since Elvis died in 1977? That the bedrooms, the bathrooms have all been kept exactly as they were? That the sheets are still full of Elvis's dead skin cells and hair, the pillows stiff with the King's drool? Not even President Clinton was able to get access to the private rooms of Graceland when he requested it. In fact, the only thing that has been changed since the day Elvis died is this toilet seat.”

Jeffrey placed a hand lightly on the glass.

“So Elvis died sitting on this?”

Du Wald nodded. “Quite right.”

“How did you . . . ?”

Du Wald shrugged. “A lot of negotiation. And a lot of money. But believe me, this artifact is totally authentic. I was present for the removal and replacement myself. This is the second most valuable thing in my collection.”

“Oh, yeah?” Randal said. “What's number one?”

“This.”

Du Wald was at the far end of the room now, looking into the last glass case. Randal and Jeffrey followed him and crowded around to take a look. It contained an old Cartier box, frayed at the edges. Inside, on a bed of white silk, was what looked to be a small piece of beef jerky, or maybe a dried eel. It was brown, and shriveled, and utterly unrecognizable. But Du Wald was staring at it in wonder, his breathing fat and labored.

“What IS it?” Jeffrey asked.

“This, gentlemen, is the penis of Napoleon Bonaparte.”

Rupert fell into silence again, allowing the words to resonate. He looked to his guests, who stared at the small, dried-up thing with mouths hanging open. He cleared his throat, and continued:

“There have been several fakes floating around the collectors' market over the past fifty years, but this one is the real deal. It was removed from the corpse by the emperor's physician Francesco Antommarchi and a priest named Abbe Vignali, on the island of Saint Helena. Now here's the rub: supposedly the penis was sold to a rare book dealer in 1916 by Vignali's descendants. That curio has passed through several auction houses over the years, finally ending up in the hands of a private collector who bought it in the late 1980s. However, back in 1821 a manservant called Ali was also present at the removal, and this artifact came as a package with Ali's diaries, which reveal that Ali substituted the penis with the mutilated corpse of a seahorse. The diaries also reveal that the priest was a shortsighted drunk, who was easily duped by his plucky manservant. This—the genuine penis—has never appeared on the open market and has only been in the hands of three collectors before me.”

“It's so . . .
small
,” whispered Jeffrey.

“Well”—Du Wald smiled—“if we were to remove your penis, drain the blood from it, and mummify it for a century and a half, it may also seem suddenly less than impressive, yes?”

“Jesus Christ,” Randal said, his nose pressed against the glass, “that is some crazy shit.”

“Indeed. Now, gentlemen, enough small talk. I think that it's time for our featured presentation, don't you?”

They straightened up. Randal had the bag in his hand. “You have the equipment ready?”

“Of course. Film makes up a large portion of my collection. This way, please. . . .”

“Um, do you have popcorn?” Randal asked as they walked through another door, leading to a small theater room. There were two banks of fold-up red velvet cinema seats, facing toward a small screen. In the center of the room was an ancient-looking sixteen-millimeter projector. Du Wald ignored Randal and placed a hand lovingly on the projector.