Upgunned (2 page)

Nasja had been quite a looker not so long ago; a high-fashion version of that ingénue from the summer tent-pole comic book movies, the one whose name nobody can remember now. I couldn't bring myself to grope her too much. Her breasts had been burglarized by implant removal and her flesh was mealy on the bone from anorexia. Whenever she glanced up with her too-big, greyhound eyes I tried to look like I was enjoying myself. Someday, I thought, I'll reflect that I actually fucked this woman, with an odd sense of accomplishment, but it was more fun to
have done
than to actually
do.
I had never considered that perhaps Nasja wanted to fuck me; she just would.

I was thinking about Char.

She would arrive around midnight or one. She would deploy a watertight lie and avoid kissing me at first, and I would smell the mints on her breath and confirm that she had been in her idea of a better world, fucking Clavius—my “superior”—the whole time. This thought, this story-yet-to-unfold with unerring predictability, had the strange perk of stiffening me just as my penis was going on the nod in Nasja's mouth. Nasja interpreted this signal as the excitement preceding a volcanic curtain-ringer of a climax, and went up-tempo. We were done pretty quickly after that—one more vodka, icy-cold—and she was out the door within fifteen minutes. She didn't kiss me, either.

Char herself aspired to the editorial chairmanship of some edgy magazine, partially due to her refreshing lack of the new Victorianism. I suppose we lasted two years or so because she was one of the very few women who did not come to me directly from the Clavius pipeline—that hit parade of soulless beauties unattainable by the rank and file. She did not know Clavius. We met at an event that had nothing to do with Clavius. We ate dinners and clocked social events completely unrelated to Clavius, and frankly I had begun to feel like a freed man, or at least a kid willfully staying up past bedtime. The first time we spent a night together, we talked ourselves hoarse and got so tired that we did not burden ourselves with the performance obligations of sex. We actually slept. Feel free to jam your finger down your throat, but it was true. Most newcomer pairings lard too much urgency onto a first copulation that is supposed to “feel” spontaneous. Char and I bided our time and were rewarded for our patience and insight, or at least that's how I like to enshrine it in memory. At the time, I thought,
I chose you,
and thereby deluded myself that the world wasn't so dire. I guess it was inevitable that Clavius would charm her. He had won me over the same way—seduced me without any sex.

When the guy with the gun showed up instead of Char, you can imagine how derailed I felt.

*   *   *

My two newest visitors had also come bearing sidearms. They walked in, scanned the space, then very politely holstered their weaponry. One tall, one small, with the laser eyes and disposition of enforcers—the guys who hold you while the main guy punches your internal organs to puree.

The main guy kept his gun out, still gesturing with it.

“These are your two newest assistants,” he told me. “You point out what you need for a decent photo shoot and we all take a short ride across town. You get to shoot some pictures—kinda like what you were doing in here—and you develop 'em for us, and then we go away forever unless you try some kind of foolishness, in which case I will put this gun in your mouth and pull the trigger until it's empty, and this holds nine hollow points, which means a great big ole mess and no head for you no more. You copy?”

I had said maybe five words since he first walked in. I looked around as though suddenly teleported here from a nice barbeque or a chummy funeral.

“Whatever you say,” I said.

These men wanted to take me out of here. Char was coming. Char could be spared this madness. Our personal soap opera paled next to the threat of death. I did not want anyone to die. Like everybody, I thought black thoughts but I didn't want to precipitate anyone's death, not even these intruders who had come to change my whole life.

That, in retrospect, was my problem: I didn't care enough about anything to kill it.

There on the table: ten large, tax free, for a quickie. Forget the guns.

“Figure an hour,” my new life advisor said.

“What do I call you?” I said.

“Why?” His gaze went flinty. “Why does that matter? Do you care? You think you're going to Google me or something? Friend me? Do you honestly believe a
name
is worth a dry rat turd? What fucking planet do you live on?”

Automatically I felt the urge to apologize, which was even more stupid. Instead, I pointed out a good package of minimal, transportable equipment (something I knew how to do on autopilot) and the two heavies geared up.

If I could pretend this was just a normal, eccentric gig, I might survive to continue wearing my own body.

The northern freight elevator was actually installed in the building during the reconstruction to add bogus veracity to the concept of loft living, in a space not originally designed as a loft. It was a sell point. We rode down in silence and wound up packed into a rental Crown Victoria, me in the backseat with my gun-toting guide.

He was still irritated.

He seemed to boil over; he pressed the muzzle of his pistol against my temple.

“My name is
headshot,
you rich dick!”

“I'm not … rich…”

“
Shut the fuck up!
” he yelled. “What
is
that?” He mimicked a puling weasel voice: “‘
Euuuw, what do I call you
?' Is that some kind of hostage bullshit you learned from HBO? Humanize the assailant so he won't fucking kill you? Did I ask you who
you
fucking were? No! Am I going to blow your fucking face off if you don't shut the hell up and do as you're told? Yes!”

The shaved apes in the front seat were glancing backward, as though concerned for their leader's calm.

He blew out a harsh sigh. “Jesus, you guys make me fucking mad.”

I risked answering. “Uh—me?”

“Yes, you, moron! All you privileged horse cocks with your faggoty little photo shoots and goddamned hot models and little fucking cocktail parties and receptions and magazines and
christ
you piss me off!”

We dropped down to Sunset and headed west, toward Beverly Hills.

“I'm not saying anything,” I said.

“You don't have to. It's oozing out of your skin. Fear. Pure animal panic. Because tonight the real world suddenly butt-fucked your little dream existence.”

He seemed satisfied with that—or at least mollified—and we finished the trip in silence except for a few directions.
Turn here. Pull in there.

Below Sunset off the Strip there existed a number of big-ticket hotels not on the paparazzi map, hidden-panel sybararies that catered to a clientele who paid large for guaranteed privacy and excellent room service with no questions asked and no request too outrageous. Security was plainclothes and omnipresent.

As we debarked in the parking garage my captor advised: “Signal. Shout. Do anything and you're all done. Be businesslike.”

I nodded. Without a title or pseudonym to mark him, I had shortformed him in my mind as Gun Guy.

Suite 240 rated a presidential subtitle and came with polarized blackout glass. You could fire up a searchlight inside and no one outside the building would see a hint. My new crew and I entered the largest room of four in the suite, lavishly appointed. Cigarette smoke unreeled in lazy webs across the air. The occupants of the room had butted about half a pack in waiting.

Gun Guy steered me around for introductions.

“Elias, say hello to Cognac.”

Seated on a wingback sofa was a brassy, implanted redhead who resembled whats-her-name, that British soft-core celebutard. She had on steel-tipped spike heels, about two parallel miles of nylon stocking, a garter belt, an extremely constrictive bustier, and little else except her work smile. I noticed her jade-green eyes were contacts. Several pounds of burnished hair like a four-alarm blaze. She waved perfunctorily. “Meetcha.”

With an exaggerated stage whisper my keeper added, “I don't think Cognac is her
real
name, do you?”

There was also a birdy older man wearing John Lennon spectacles. Hair plugs marched in a straight line across the top of his face like a row of shoe polish–brown cornstalks.

“Cognac there is a prostitute,” said the gunman, “and this fellow here we'll call the Professor, because he'd pop a clot if I mentioned
his real
name.”

Indeed, the Professor immediately turned crimson at the fleeting notion of exposure, and coughed artificially to cover his panic. I realized I was probably looking at another ten grand each, for these two.

“And in here, you'll find our special guest star.”

He led me into the master bedroom. On the California king was a large vinyl body bag containing either a person or two hundred pounds of really expensive appetizers. He unzipped it and unfortunately,
shazam,
dead man. My gut plummeted.

Nobody I knew, but somebody I could recognize, and put a name to.

*   *   *

You've seen Clavius's work everywhere. If you lived in New York City, you might decide to attend a party or elite gallery function based on whether Clavius might actually show up. If you worked in an upscale office there was probably a Clavius print on the wall, framed in brushed aluminum, and if you're upscale enough, it would be numbered and signed with his distinctive scrolled “C.” Celebrities queue to his favor. Sous-chefs fawned and prepared off-the-menu vegetarian dishes for him. He occasionally surfaced among luminaries on the news; more rarely on pop rot like
E!
or
Entertainment Tonight.

Touching the finer things by proxy has always been a big deal in America. Who's-who has cash value, like getting your hair chopped and dyed at Talia's in the 90210. Bonus points if Talia comped you.

Of course, Clavius wasn't his real name, but that was de rigueur for men of his stature. His few approved photos depicted him as a florid Teuton with a severe crew cut and the penetrating gaze of an ocean carnivore. We met about five years ago at a place called the New World Inkworks, which no longer existed in Los Angeles … as did most things in Los Angeles.

New World Inkworks was not one of those 24/7 Xeroxeries, but an actual publishing time warp that reeked of the old school: hot glue guns, rubber cement, rubyliths, pasteups, X-Acto knives, and real, live physical layout done on light boards. Its professed specialty was high-end lithographs and limited edition art prints on special acid-free stock, many done for the Getty Museum's gift shop. The owner, kommandant, and chief ramrod was a man straight out of a Broadway road show of
The Front Page
named Harry “Boss” Wiley who—yes—actually wore the visor and arm garters you're thinking of right now.

Due to the looming specter of digital everything and the need to keep the lights on at New World, Boss had neatly divided his profession to address both high culture and low. He had doggedly cemented a reputation as the go-to guy for artsy-fartsy print work while cultivating an after-hours relationship with more mainstream media. In other words, by day he actualized canonical art for the masses, and after dark he kept his staff comfortably busy with porn, for the
real
masses. More American than Boss you just didn't get, as an entrepreneur.

My own lack of a studio, facilities, portfolio, repute, and walking cash brought me into Boss's orbit. In one of three back rooms Boss kept a behemoth of a retired Linotype machine, despite the space it absorbed, purely in honor of his romance with print. Next to that Linotype I humped many graveyard shifts running off-color folio pages for the likes of
Pubes!, Just Past Jailbait, FunBag, Foxy Moxie, Drip Groove, Nipplemania, Sluts 'N Tarts, Gashette, Hollywood Loaf, Spankers, Grease Man, 2 Young 2 Date, Hot Trotting Tots, Cave Boy, Wet 'N Squishy, Yeast Beasts, Fistful of Udders, The Diary of Gloria Hole, Muff Divas, Great Big Onez, Marine Discharge, Blood Vamps, Gooey,
and a variety of their high-quality sister publications. The sheet stacks were a never-ending catalogue of artificially moistened vaginae, peter-pumped cocks, leering browneyes, and glassy mannequin stares in ceaseless aggro recombination. You get inured to the flood tide pretty quickly if you don't want to start dropping letters from the alphabet soup made of your brain by the busywork or the Mandarin hours.

The payoff, for me, was the serviceable darkroom Boss also maintained. It was all mine when the adult entertainment portion of my shift was completed.

I'd never liked color photography much, although I'd done my share. Attenuated night vision heightens your discrimination of gray tones, not color, which is why I keep the vitamin A in my medicine chest—to encourage more rhodopsin in the rods of my retinas.

Clavius, as it happened, was attracted by the angle of having a porn sweatshop grind out the posters and prints for a show planned at a West Village gallery called Beneath 5th Street. His highbrow reputation was in no way compromised by his excellent nose for sleaze and he needed a confluence of the two in order to maintain street cred and his cachet as an edgy innovator. So Clavius approached Boss with nearly all the ancillary work for the show whose title won him his big-time sobriquet—“C.”

It was a gathering of earth-toned, biomechanoid photo studies, post-Expressionist, post-post-Industrial, pre-Millennial; a style that has since become known, in our new century, as Meltdown, to predate it from “mashup.” Now, today, Clavius had left all that far behind in the quaint past. I looped all of it in the darkroom at New World Inkworks, and since Clavius was so fussy about quality control, he hung around while the waterfall of porn flew from the presses. We got to talking and it wasn't long before he said, “I've got something perfect for a fellow like you, if you think you're game.”