Altar Ego (10 page)

‘Zachary? How good to meet you. This is my partner, Rebecca Steele. Becky, this is my new client, Zachary Burne.’

For one cardiac-arresting moment, I thought he was going to say ‘yeah, we’ve met …’ But his mouth, no, it wasn’t just a mouth – we’re talking child-bearing lips – curled into a wide and wicked grin.

‘A pleasure,’ he said moistly, ‘Rebecca.’ He rolled my name around on his tongue. In contrast to Julian’s hand-stitched Savile Row suit, Zachary was sporting faded Levis, Nike trainers and a T-shirt that ended halfway up his midriff, exposing a muscular, crème-brûlée-coloured abdomen. A medusa of dreadlocks coiled from his crown. A silver ring through his belly button completed the Himbo look just nicely.

Before I could fake a cerebral seizure, Himbo sat down uninvited and smiled engagingly in my direction. I glowered back at him.

‘So, Zachary, how are you finding England?’ Julian asked, conversationally.

Zachary stretched a leisurely hand in my direction to retrieve the wine bottle. I flinched automatically. He looked at me questioningly. ‘Yeah, it’s okay an’ all,’ he shrugged. ‘The babes are a bit weird, know what I’m
sayin
’? Come on real strong then the next time yer see ’em, it’s like they’ve got an iceberg up their ass.’

‘Maybe it’s just that it takes them a little while to realize how truly arrogant Americans are?’ I retorted prissily.

Julian shot me an admonishing look – the same look he gave me the time I used his Beatles compilation CD as a drinks coaster.

Waving away the disgruntled wine waiter, Zachary filled his own glass with Chardonnay. He moved, I noted, with an underwater languor, slow and measured. ‘At least meetin’ British women I’ve learnt that ya don’t have to be, like, dead, to be stiff.’

Before I could avenge myself with a little penile acupuncture beneath the table with my stiletto, my eye was caught by a hideous, head-turning apparition galumphing across the floor, scattering waiters in its wake. Mid-fifties, five foot three, weighing in at about 190 pounds, it had the sort of face you wouldn’t wish on a bull terrier; the sort of face, in fact, you usually associate with Crime and Accident Reconstruction programmes. Stuffed into a Versace suit and completely bald, it had that ‘I was a chartered accountant for a Colombian drug cartel’ look. What was worse, this porcine Scud missile was about to make a direct hit with our table.

As Julian rose to greet this monstrosity, I turned to Zachary, my whispered rebuke shrill with indignation. ‘I am
not
stiff. Just allergic to bumping into
one-night
stands
while I’m out with my
husband
.’

‘One
night
?’ Zachary smiled cockily and rocked back in his chair to scratch his ribcage lazily. ‘You’ll be back for more.’

‘Becky?’

I realized with a jolt that my mouth was hanging open. ‘Um … Yes?’

‘Julian rotated towards me. ‘This is Eddy Rotterman, Zachary’s manager.’

‘What’s got four legs an’ an arm?’ Eddy said, by way of introduction. ‘A goddamn Rottweiler … So call me Rotty.’ He extended his hand. I was reluctant to shake it, not having had a rabies shot.

Julian sat back down. Eddy Rotterman took longer to lower his pachyderm proportions into an ill-fitting leather chair.

‘In a fit of political correctness,’ Julian explained for my benefit, ‘Zachary’s latest CD has been seized by Scotland Yard’s Obscenity Squad. Mr Rotterman has asked me to act on his behalf to secure its release at a court hearing next week. We will have a difficult task educating the Bow Street Magistrates. Scotland Yard has spent many hours with specially enhanced sound equipment transcribing the otherwise incomprehensible voice of the black ghettos of the Bronx into passable English – no offence.’

‘You’re a rock star?’ I asked Zachary, astounded.

‘Kinda.’ He looked down at his hands, his lashes languishing on velvet cheeks.

‘He’s the bomb,’ enthused Rotty, cracking his knuckles. ‘Matter-a-fact the top labels are creamin’ their jeans to sign up America’s hottest hero. My main man, Zack, here, is soon to be a household name.’

‘Like Toilet Duck,’ I said dryly, from behind the menu.

‘Don’t cha like rock stars?’ Zachary enquired, his bottom lip now playing host to a roll-your-own cigarette.

‘Rock stars? You mean the sort of person who thinks it’s funny to slip his penis between two slices of a sandwich before offering it to an aged relative? Ah … no.’

Julian’s eyebrows started executing a curious kind of hirsute SOS semaphore.

Rotty scowled before deciding I was joking. ‘Nice one, babe.’ His guffaw sounded not unlike a backed-up Jacuzzi.

‘Actually, it ain’t rock. What do yer think of the rap?’ Zachary leant back, arms folded insouciantly across his powerful chest and smirked insolently in my direction.

‘I find deep sleep an excellent way of listening to a rap band.’

Julian’s look darkened even more. This was the look he’d given me after I sent his Bruce Springsteen tour T-shirt to Oxfam. ‘Can I talk to you behind our menu please? …
What are you doing?
’

‘They’re New Yorkers,’ I bluffed, ‘they hate sycophants.’

‘Really?’ he sounded dubious.

‘Would I lie to you?’ I lied.

Zachary re-emerged from behind his own massive bill of fare. ‘Just bring me a burger with fries, man, and make it cry,’ he announced to the startled waiter.

Chez Nico is the kind of poncey Park Lane eatery where you have to offer up your first-born child in order to get a reservation.

‘Make it cry, Sir?’

‘Onions and chilli,’ Zachary deciphered.

The waiter curled a patronizing lip. ‘Wouldn’t Sir like to consult the menu again?’

‘Naw. A menu’s just a bit of paper that lists what the restaurant’s just run out of, right? A burger’s fine. Hold the ketchup.’

‘I’m afraid we don’t stretch to “burgers”, Sir.’ Condescension was positively dripping off this guy; there were little pools of it gathering around his handmade Italian shoes.

‘Okay then …’ Zachary eyed the menu suspiciously, alighting with relief on something he recognized amongst the italicized verbiage. ‘Steak. Yeah,’ he indicated his choice with one hand, while squeezing my knee beneath the table with the other.

My response to his touch was reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart’s reaction to the leeches he encountered on
The African Queen
. I dug my nails into his palm. With staggering impertinence, he then wrapped his wounded hand around my wrist. Like a handcuff.
‘And
what are you hungry for?’ Zachary Burne asked me, in a parched voice.

I darted a nervous look at Julian. Preoccupied with placing his order, he hadn’t noticed. I watched him turn to address Rotterman. But the entrepreneur was busy dismembering rolls with his stalactite teeth. Julian swivelled instead towards Zachary. ‘So,’ he small-talked. ‘What were you saying about English women?’

‘They jest want yer for yer body, man. That’s what I’m sayin’.’

‘But a shit-hot place to launch a career.’ Rotty scatter-gunned breadcrumbs over the tablecloth as he spoke. ‘Back home the authorities doan bother prosecutin’ nobody for obscenity no more. Not even in the Bible Belt. Jesus Willy Christ, I’ve got big plans for this kid. Just like Hendrix! He was first appreciated in the Old Blighty!’

‘The cultural bulimia of mainstream America must be quite a hindrance to a creative artist …’ Julian paused to sip diagnostically at his wine, describing it as ‘capricious in its affability’. Zachary turned his intense, dark gaze on to my Significant Other. With a disconcerting pang, I suddenly saw Julian through Zachary’s eyes – middle class and middle-minded, predictable, pretentious, pinstriped. ‘Not that we don’t like Americans …’ He added, darting a censorious look at me.

‘The reason you English don’t like us Yanks is ’cause
we
know how to enjoy ourselves.’ Zachary now centred me in his unblinking gaze. ‘You Brits have no idea how badly yer live. I betcha in yer Constitution it promises “the pursuit of misery”.’

‘Yes,’ laughed Julian. ‘It’s enshrined. “The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Jellied Eels.” But the pursuit of happiness can be used as a justification for the most appallingly selfish behaviour. For example – sexual incontinence.’ I started to wince inwardly. ‘One in three British couples has an adulterous partner, you know.’ I gulped at my wine. ‘A symptom of the
fin-de-siècle
angst of …’

‘Darling, tell me, do you intend concluding that sentence any time in my life span, do you think? … Julian drowns in his own brainwaves, I’m afraid.’

‘My fuckin’ wife pursues happiness, Jeezus. She’s near-on bankrupted me pursuin’ happiness. Stoopid bitch,’ added Eddy Rotterman superfluously. ‘The only goddamn difference between my wife and my job, is that after five years, my job still sucks.’

Eddy Rotterman, it turned out, had begun his career in car rental before moving into entrepreneurial activities, representing – amongst a star-studded clientele – a Mexican transvestite who could fellate himself and a Peruvian dwarf who could haul a cart full of sumo wrestlers across the stage using only his teeth. Naturally, the world of rock and roll had beckoned. Having built up fledgling bands with names like ‘The Butthole Sniffers’, he now had
Zachary
Phoenix Burne on his books complete with banned album, ensuring megabucks worth of publicity.

‘So far the Stud here’s only got a cult following …’ Rotterman slapped Zachary on the back. ‘Hell, the kid’s so fresh he’s still flappin’!’ Zachary responded with an air of muted James Dean rebellion.

‘Cult? You make it sound as though he sacrifices virgins, for God’s sake,’ I scoffed, dismissively. My wrist still burnt where he’d touched me.

‘Mainly chicks,’ Rotty jabbered. ‘Women hear his music through their cunts, ya know?’

He was obviously the intellectual type. I risked eye contact with Julian, who reciprocated with a raised and querulous brow.

‘But being banned! Those Scotland Yard fuckheads can blow me. I figger the publicity from this court case is gunna make him. Yer know Spike Lee? Well, I’ve already got him to cast Zachary in his next film. They’re rewritin’ the script, right now, to make his part larger.’

I myself could think of parts of him which it would be a pleasure to make larger. For God’s sake, I told myself. Get a grip. I was merely lost in a fog of pheromones. I tried to think of unsexy things – corn pads, Anusol, Cliff Richard … But it was useless. Zachary Phoenix Burne was so sexy, he could open a deposit account at a sperm bank.

‘Unfortunately, Mr Rotterman, the average judge
thinks
“avant-garde” is a French football team.’ Zachary stared at Julian, profoundly unimpressed at his little joke. ‘Personally, I try to keep up with modern music …’

Modern music?
The antiquated phrase belied the sentiment. I glared at Julian in disbelief, but not before I saw a wry smile play on Zachary’s lips. This was too embarrassing.

‘Julian … you hum along to supermarket muzak!’

‘Well … it’s not a crime, darling.’

‘It is if the song is “Ob-la-de, Ob-la-dah”.’

Thankfully the meal arrived. Zachary prodded a fork into his steak with repulsed disdain. ‘I said rare man, not “grazin”. The meat on this plate is tryin’ to canter off to a rodeo.’

‘But that’s what you ordered, Sir.’

‘I ordered steak.’

‘Steak tartare,’ explained Julian, ‘is raw.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Zachary recoiled in revulsion, pushed away his plate and lit up another roll your own.

‘More wine?’ Julian asked. ‘Any favourites?’

‘Wine’s like women. The older the better, man.’ With imperturbable poise, Zachary looked directly at me.

‘Yes,’ I rejoindered, gaping at him. ‘Wine that’s too young
lacks subtlety
.’

‘So, Zachary?’ Julian cross-examined, ‘Are you implying a romantic attachment to an older woman?’

‘Been playin’ pocket pool over this babe I met just once. Redhead.’ He surveyed me with those glinting
eyes
again. I studied my napkin with forensic absorption. ‘Smart. Older. Pain in the ass.’

‘
Older?
’ I prickled. ‘How much older? You make her sound as though she’s on life-support.’

‘Experienced. Tough. Takes no prisoners,’ Zachary drawled. ‘An’, the best thing, she couldn’t give a stuff about what I do. But like all nineties babes, she’s lost the art of love.’

‘Perhaps,’ I countered, ‘it’s just that she expects so little from a rap star. Rap stars have Velcro dicks, do they not? Stick to any woman that passes. Rap stars, I’m told, change lovers more often than underwear.’

‘Rappers get bad press,’ Zachary asserted, strong-chinned and mutinous.

‘Bad press? Naw. Don’t shit me. No such thing …’ said Rotterman, the Hype Meister. ‘Now, Counsellor, how shall we handle those goddamn sonsofbitches?’

Julian and Rotterman bent their heads together to discuss the finer points of Scotland Yard versus Rottweiler Records, leaving me no conversational option other than Zachary. He was close enough for me to smell his skin. Not even the cigarette smoke could mask his particular aroma – cardamom and cinnamon and something else unsettling.

‘And what would a rap star have to do to, like, prove himself to you?’ He crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. His silver fly buttons meandered over his crotch. Lucky old fly buttons.

‘If I
were
interested in one, improbable as it is, but
hypothetically
speaking, I’d set him tasks to prove himself. You know, Herculean quests.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know … Something unobtainable … like Thomas Pynchon’s signature …’

‘Who?’

‘A writer. God, I forgot. A rock star’s reading material is limited to his bank balance. Pynchon is a famous literary recluse.’

‘What else?’ A thin stream of smoke slipped from his luxuriant lips. Lips that could melt a woman at three hundred paces.

‘I don’t know. Home delivering twenty of her favourite Häagen-Dazs ice-cream flavours wouldn’t go astray … Renting a billboard and begging her to be your Love Goddess … A gift-wrapped sea horse. A purple rose. Stuff like that.’