The Nirvana Blues (52 page)

Instead, the wrought-iron portals opened as if by magic when he approached them. And, if not exactly whistling Dixie, Joe egressed much as he had ingressed—whole, hale, and bewildered.

He was free, back into the actual world, with nothing to remind him of the surreal adventure except a soggy costume!

*   *   *

T
RIBBY
G
ORDON'S OFFICE
was located on the second floor of a shabby prefab hovel situated a quarter-mile north of the post office. The building also housed a pawnshop, Noelle Paxton's tattoo parlor, and three hippie jewelers. Joe counted “One, two, three…” waiting for Tribby to terminate a coughing fit, then opened the door. Peering through opaque layers of cigarette smoke resembling a Dickensian London fog, he spotted his frazzled pal seated behind a beaver-mound pile of legal papers surrounded by a half-dozen butt-laden cut-glass ashtrays, reading a copy of
Trout,
by Ray Bergman.

“Hard at work, I see.” Joe left open the door, hoping a miraculous breath of fresh air might clear out the place before he collapsed from smoke inhalation or suffered a fatal asthma attack. “It's nice to know that when you pay a man fifty bucks an hour, he's sparing no effort in diligently prosecuting your business.”

“Don't come to me with your problems, Joseph. Let Scott Harrison handle your divorce. I'm tired of flakking marriages for my friends: they never pay, and hate me in the end anyway. Did you bring extra flies?”

“I got a whole box. But how come, every time we go fishing, I always have to supply all the flies?”

“I'm a busy man,” Tribby grumbled. “Do you know what the divorce rate is in this county? Three out of every two marriages end up in divorce. The average live-in relationship, nonwedded, after which the concubine—male or female—sues for half the property, lasts three months. Every day at least twenty new dwellings involving these basket cases start construction. Every afternoon I have to spend at least two hours driving around the valley, handing my card out to lovey-dovey couples who'll be tearing each other apart like Siamese fighting-fish as their dream houses near completion. Did you bring the coke?”

“I haven't been home yet.”

“Heidi still has it?”

“I told you—I left it there last night.”

“What about Natalie's offer?”

“You mean as opposed to her husband's bagful of propositions?”

“Need I repeat that you said he wound up by threatening meat-grinders?”

“Granted. But…”

“Well?”

“Oh sure. I suppose it makes sense to accept her offer. But today I spent hours over at Eloy's land and it's so beautiful it breaks my heart.”

“Why don't you think about it, then? No hurry. We got lots of time … an hour, two hours. Maybe even two hours and forty-five minutes. Don't want to rush into anything. But the fish are awaiting, let's split. Later we'll talk.”

“First, I think I should tell you something.”

“So tell.”

“I got snatched by Joseph Bonatelli a few minutes ago.”

“‘Snatched'?”

“Kidnapped. Some lisping thug in a gorilla mask took me at gunpoint out to the don's digs for a meeting with the Tarantula himself.”

“Hmm. How come you're all wet? What happened?”

“I'm not exactly sure. I think he tried to threaten me by shooting a grapefruit with my name on it. But he missed. And I wound up jumping into his pool to save his errand boy—my kidnapper—who couldn't swim. As I was leaving, a little Forest Service helicopter started to put down on the lawn, and, if I didn't know better, I'd say that the dwarf was behind the wheel.”

“Which dwarf?”

“Joe's kid—Ephraim.”

“He's in the hospital with a bullet wound.”

“I said ‘if I didn't know better.'”

Tribby frowned, then squinched up his entire face perplexedly: “One thing that makes sense—that little jerk can fly.”

“How do you know?”

“I kept bumping into him in Vietnam. His dad must have paid the army to drop the height requirements. He used to pilot a Huey gunship wearing a chartreuse jumpsuit with a naked woman in silver cowboy boots on the back.”

“What would Bonatelli be doing with a Forest Service helicopter in his yard?”

Tribby shook his head. “Look. Let's talk in the car. The trout must be up.”

“Before we leave, I gotta borrow the phone.”

Joe dialed the house, hoping that Heidi would decide these issues for him. She had flushed the cocaine down the toilet. Or, thinking it cake mix, Heather had ruined it with water and burned it up in her Easy-Bake Oven. Joe was about to hang up after eight rings when Heidi answered breathlessly. Joe said, “Listen, this morning the kids asked if I could come over and wrestle tonight, after supper.”

“Joey,” she said plaintively, “just for the record, what are you up to? What are you doing? What's happening with us? Don't you think we ought to have a discussion or something to figure out where we're at and why, and where we're going? So that we could either separate formally or stay together or get divorced, or just do
some
thing? We need to articulate an arrangement; I can't stand this ridiculous limbo.”

“Well, sure, I don't see why not.”

“I mean, I have no idea what you think, or why you left, or why you started screwing that Reichian Pollyanna, or why—”

“Maybe we could leave other people's names out of our conversations,” Joe said tightly.

“How am I supposed to refer to her then, as ‘her'? As ‘it'? As ‘she'?”

“How about if you don't refer to her at all?”

“But why has all this happened in the first place if it wasn't because you wanted to ball old whatshername? Do you want a divorce? Are you two planning a July wedding?”

“Nobody's getting married—Jesus!” Stop, he cried silently. I'm calling you up because I
love
you! I want a reconciliation!

“Well, Joey, you're so goddam wishy-washy. It's like all of a sudden you decided to float around out there acting stupid—it doesn't make any sense. Your official midlife crisis isn't due for another six years! If you're in love with her, I could understand. I might not like it, but at least I'd understand.”

“Hold on a sec. Get off your high horse. For starters, three days ago you told me you didn't want me in the house.”

“Would you want me in
your
digs if I was out there screwing some cock-teasing religious fanatic who kept calling the house while you were here and asking me to come over for a roll in the old sackeroo?”

“Do you have to be so gross?”

“Yeah, I think maybe I do. What's the matter, Mr. Morality here doesn't want his eardrums tainted with crude talk? Pardon me. I'll have to reread my Emily Post.”

“I don't see any point in coming over tonight if all you're interested in is seeing how many bitch-points you can score needling me. I mean, we're supposed to be at least semirational human beings.”

“I'm not trying to score bitch-points. If that's the way I sound, apologies to the pope. I'm just not accustomed to this role, that's all. In case you're interested, I happen to feel a bit humiliated.”

“Well, uh, I guess I can't blame you for that.”

“Thanks for all your compassion. But why don't you save yourself a lot of grief and take the compassion and shove it you know where.”

“Heidi! All I wanted to know was could I wrestle with the kids after supper?”

“They're your kids, too. You don't need permission. I'll leave, if you want. I'll call up Scott Harrison, see who's available in the screwing pool, and go have myself a wonderful time doing S and M with some SOB on R and R from Doyle, Dane, Bernbrenner, Katusco, and Loblolly.”

“Will you calm down, please? You're getting hysterical.”

“Actually, I'm not really hysterical.” Heidi calmed down immediately. “I've been doing some thinking—I know, that surprises you. But do me a favor, don't make your usual crack, that you thought you smelled wood burning, all right? It wouldn't sit well right now.”

“I had no intention—”

“Fine. Just double-checking, you know?”

“And so?”

“And so I've been thinking this whole mess is probably a very good thing. I've been tired of this town for a long time, I've wanted to return to the city. Now I have a made-in-the-shade opportunity to pull up stakes and try New York again.”

“You
what?
”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, but, I mean, well … shit.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“But you can't just … I mean, those are my kids, too. Hey, Heidi, what's the matter with you anyway?”

“
You
left home, Joey. You walked out, deserted us, and started fucking Miss Ethereal over there. Not a court in this country would give you custody. Not only that, but naturally we'll have to sell the land and split the take—”

“
Sell
it? We haven't even
bought
it!”

“That's right. ‘We' is the proper word. But now that it looks like ‘we're' not going to be a ‘we' any longer, I want my half of that land, in cash. It's not cheap to move back to the city with two young children.”

“Wait a minute, shut up, would you? What are you talking about, moving to the city, selling the land? Five days ago you were in love with the land. We're gonna build a house, put down roots—”

“Things change. Five days ago you weren't racing around town sticking your penis into every vagina that gave it a coy little wink.”

“Heidi, you got a garbage-mouth.”

“Hell
hath
no fury like a woman scorned.”

“Oy vay, stop—all right? Listen, I'll come over tonight, I'll play with the kids. And after they're in bed, we'll talk, okay? This is absurd.”

“Maybe I have a date tonight. I was in a bar this afternoon and I met this really super-fab-groovy Texan from Dallas who looked like a real stud. He invited me over to his pad in the Holiday Inn—”

“Do you have to be this ugly?”

“I don't know … but everything I am I learned from you the last few days.”

Joe said, “One thing I ought to make clear is if we buy the land, we can't sell it. Not while Eloy is there. He has nowhere to go. He's sick. If we kicked him off he'd die in forty-eight hours from a broken heart.”

“Joey, you'll hand that ‘poor little old man' sixty thousand dollars in hard cash that you risked all of our lives to secure. I'm sorry, but I can't—”

“He's spent his whole
life
on that property! He knows every weed. Every leaf and grass-blade is an extension of his soul.”

“Four days ago you told me that as soon as we gave that old goat the heave we could start building.”

“But that was before—”

“No buts, mister. I want my cash. I even figured it out, in case you're interested. Half of sixty Gs is thirty grand. But if we hang on to the place for just six months, we should be able to sell for eighty.”

“Heidi, you're sick. Where's the stuff in that tea box?”

“You mean the cocaine?”

He shuddered. “Does everybody have to advertise it explicitly over the telephone?”

“It's in a safe place. Don't worry.”

“Don't worry? You got a three
A.M.
phone call last night from a killer who threatened to kidnap Heather and drop her into the gorge, and I'm not supposed to worry?”

“How did you know that?”

“Tribby. He got the same call.”

“Tribby's untrustworthy. I love him as a friend, but I think we should cut him out. He has cold feet.”

“My
own
feet are freezing! I was kidnapped by none other than Joseph Bonatelli this afternoon. He made me write my name on a grapefruit, and then he smashed it right before my eyes.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“The adventure is loco. The usual channels are closed off to us. They'll stomp us royally if we try to unload that stuff on the open market. Ray Verboten, Skipper Nuzum, Cobey Dallas, and Joseph Bonatelli himself have already threatened my life. We've been blacklisted. But Tribby at least knows how to get me my money back, and that option's the only one makes any sense.”

“You want to sell it for twelve thousand dollars?” Heidi shrieked.

“Believe me, at that price right now it's a bargain. Heidi, they
mean
it when they talk about dropping Heather into the gorge!”

“Over my dead body.”

“Precisely. Now listen—where is that box?”

“I know where it is, and it's none of your business. If you're so chicken, I'll handle it.”

“You'll
what?
” Who had she metamorphosed into overnight, Alice Capone? “Heidi, it's not worth it, honest. I would rather you flushed the coke down the toilet, really. The longer that junk is in our possession, the sooner something horrible could happen. Suppose they broke Michael's back? Or threw a hand grenade!”

“You and your imagination! It got us into this, and now all you can do is whimper and order me to flush twelve thousand dollars down the toilet. Well, let me tell you something, Joey. If this is a trick, I'm not buying it. You can't fool me anymore. If we're going to be divorced, I want my thirty Gs. No male chauvinist pig is screwing me out of that. I want mine. Then we'll be even steven and you can proceed with your amorous lunacies without any more interference from these quarters.”

“I hate to say this, Heidi, but you're giving me the creeps.”

“You
are
a creep, Joey.”

“I'm gonna hang up now, I feel sick.”

“Welcome to the club.”