Drawing Dead (46 page)

It’s all right, he said. It’s all right to be confused.

Juan, I said, fighting through the miasma to establish a beachhead of authority in the conversation. I appreciate your concern. But
frankly, man, I’m just here to ask some questions. Do you think you can handle that? Or do I have to wade through an hour of hokum to get there?

Delgado sighed. Tapped his cane twice. A frothing blonde beauty in a silver sheath appeared, hair trimmed little-boy short and wearing a beret that matched the dress.

Lola, a double of the best for my friend, said Delgado in a faux tired tone, and—

Yes, sir, she said, in the most melting tone that a Yes, sir has ever been delivered, and turned heel for the bar.

Delgado spent the time before Lola returned giving me the Look that said, I’m sorry you haven’t yet seen the light but I have faith that you soon will. I spent the time eyeing the extravagantly displayed body parts of Lola’s sistren-in-flesh, who surrounded us like snipers hanging from the trees in the Forest of Temptation.

The drink helped.

Let’s start at the start, I said.

Delgado raised his glass in a silent toast that seemed to say, Yes, let’s do that.

What the fuck happened that night? I said.

Ah, said Delgado, that night. I’m tempted to say, what night?

But you know that you’d just be wasting my valuable time.

He chuckled.

So?

What happened happened. You got very drunk. Certain inhabitants of the establishment, who may or may not be associated with me, one way or in some other way, gave you what you wanted.

Thank you for the clarification. You are most kind.

The pleasure is all mine, he said, with the air of someone impervious to irony.

And just what was it that I wanted?

Humiliation, he said matter-of-factly. Lola! he called out.

Lola slinked, or perhaps slunk, over with the next round. Like she’d been waiting for her cue. Like a prop in a play. Instead of just bringing the damn drinks. She hovered over Delgado like a silver hummingbird. A silver hummingbird in a beret.

I slugged down half of the new double scotch. At this point it was superfluous.

The whole situation had stopped me dead. Did I want to know any more? If it involved a crime I was here to solve, sure. If it didn’t, and I had a fair certainty, not beyond religious conviction, that it didn’t, knowing more was just going to make me suffer more. My Tendencies were what they were. If I encountered them again, I’d give them a good dressing-down. Yes. That was it. Give those Tendencies a good talking to.

Brendan, I said.

Brendan?

My ex-brother-in-law. Pale. Curly hair to his shoulders. Small diamond earrings.

Ah. Could be any number of the guys …

Fuck you, Delgado, I said. You know damn well who I’m talking about.

I didn’t, in fact, have any idea whether he had any idea who I was talking about. But if he didn’t, it didn’t matter what I said. And if he did, this was the surest way to make him think that I knew that he knew something, and that therefore he’d better come out with it, or … I don’t know, I’d bring out the heavy artillery, or something, something that I didn’t have but that he didn’t know that I didn’t have.

Call it a bluff.

It worked.

Ah, he said. I think I may know who you mean. But he wasn’t Brendan. I think he called himself Ivan.

That’s him, I said.

I had no idea whether Brendan had called himself Ivan, but given his blind consortium with the Russkies, there was a truth to the notion that was all too clear. And I was going with the rush.

Called, I said. Why do you say it in the past tense?

Delgado looked at me calmly. I don’t know, he said. If you said,
Do you remember Joe, he was wearing a sharkskin suit?
you’d be asking in the past tense, right?

I had to admit he had a point.

A black albino red-eyed pimp-like scumbag with a cane, and a grammatical point to make.

Something to conjure with.

There’s more to the present than meets the eye, Delgado said.

I’d had enough.

You know, I said, fuck you. I’m tired of this bullshit New Age
I’m-creepier-than-thou-so-get-down-on-your-knees crap. You’re so fucking powerful and wise, you pasty dickhead, gut up and take me on with your own scrawny fists. Leave the posse at home. Okay? Fuck you.

Delgado stood up abruptly.

The adrenaline rush hit. I was ready for some serious action.

He turned away from me, leaned over, performed some hand-waving weirdness.

Oh no, I said, is the Wizard going to appear? Will I be zapped into a locked tower in Mordor?

Delgado straightens up, turns around.

His eyes are blue.

What the fuck? I say.

Lola leans towards Delgado, lifts her lips to his. They engage in a long, writhing, what looks like sick passionate kiss.

My, I’m thinking. I wonder how much you have to tip for the extra service.

He turns to me. His lips are red.

A normal red. It isn’t lipstick.

I’m starting to get the picture. I’m starting to get the picture that I ought to start doubting all the pictures of all the things that I’ve purportedly seen, heard and believed for the last … hell, maybe my whole fucking life.

Lola slinks behind Delgado, leans over his shoulder. Begins wiping his face with a tissue. Or something. Something more solvent than a tissue. A hand wipe or something.

Within seconds, the right side of Delgado’s face is a stunning, radiant, revelatory … normal.

I sat back. Surveyed the scene. Lola’s motherly smile. Delgado’s half-revealed face. He was still striking-looking. He was still hairless. But he sure wasn’t any albino. And he sure wasn’t black. And there wasn’t anything menacing about him anymore. He still had the full lips. But they were just … big white guy lips. Mick Jagger lips.

You’re an actor, I said.

I am, he smiled.

Lola, I said, playing the rush. You are, too. And a makeup artist.

She smiled a yes.

Congratulations, I sighed. You’re very good.

Thank you, they said simultaneously.

Actually, I meant Lola, I said. But you’re good, too … What’s your real name?

Andy, he said.

I almost did a spit-take with the scotch.

Andy?

Yes.

I can see why you changed it.

You don’t have to be mean, he said, dropping the affected speech.

He sounded like a regular guy from Jersey.

I was just doing a job, he said. No offense.

So you say. Last I heard, kidnapping, involuntary imprisonment …

I stopped. Andy and Lola, or whoever she was, were clearly having a hard time suppressing their laughter.

I already told you—Andy began.

I know, I said. There was nothing involuntary about it. Says you. Shit. Lola, can you bring me another scotch? Can you stay in character long enough to do that?

Sure, she said in a light and not quite as slinky voice.

And who was the producer of this little … spectacle? I asked Andy.

I don’t know, actually. I never met the main guy.

Who did you meet?

Whom, he said. Some beefy dude. Called himself Vladimir.

Vladimir.

Yeah .

Shit. I thought about it. I guess I’d left a trail as wide as a semitrailer on a mud road.

Lola returned with my scotch and some more hand wipes. Began removing the rest of Andy’s makeup.

How much did you get paid for your … performance? I asked him.

We haven’t gotten paid yet. Completely.

You haven’t.

No. We got some cash up front.

Let me guess. Small unmarked bills.

Hundreds, actually. New ones. Crisp.

Did he tell you why they were doing this?

He said it was a kind of, I don’t know, psychological ploy, to get some money from you that you owed. When they got their money, we’d get the rest of ours.

Money I owed? What was this? Maybe a different Vladimir? Someone working for Evgeny? But Evgeny had no reason to believe I wasn’t going to pony up. Hell, I was working for the guy. Which reminded me …

This wasn’t computing.

Can you describe this guy any better?

Not really, man. He always wanted to meet in dark corners. I mean, he was big. Strong-looking guy. Usually had a leather jacket on.

Who doesn’t?

Right. He had kind of a square face. Couldn’t see his eye color or anything. He usually had a watch cap on. Didn’t pick up his hair color either.

Why you? I asked Andy. Did you know this guy, this Vladimir guy with the watch cap?

Lola laughed.

I may just be a marginally employed actor slash waiter, Andy said, but I’m kind of well known in this … milieu.

He’s a character, said Lola. He knows everybody. Everybody knows him.

So this Delgado thing wasn’t just made up for me?

Hell no, he laughed. He’s one of my main guys.

So it was easy to get some of the others to play along with you. Like Xena, the bartenders …

Are you kidding? Andy laughed. Their whole lives are an act. Like mine. They loved it.

You know what the difference is between a transvestite and a transsexual? Lola asked.

Anatomy?

No. Some transvestites have implants. Some transsexuals don’t, yet. Haven’t had the surgery yet. No, the difference is, I take my makeup off when I get home.

That dim lighting again. Lola was actually Larry, or whoever, when she got home? Jesus. Hadn’t even occurred to me as a possibility.

So, I said, feigning nonchalance, how did you know what to do? Where I was going to be?

We got text instructions.

Do you have the number they came from?

The number was always concealed. User unknown.

Didn’t you worry that you were being asked to do something wrong, something illegal?

Come on, Rick, said Andy, reverting to his husky Delgado voice.

Okay, I said. Stupid question.

I mean, if it turned out somebody was going to actually hurt you …

Yeah, yeah. I understand.

I leaned back in the blue and silver sofa. It had a nice enveloping feel. It was going to be hard to get up. The whole scene was way enervating. But there was no way I was going to hang around here with a bunch of bit players who didn’t know shit about what was really going on.

You know anything else at all about these guys? I asked. Either of you?

I knew the answer.

The answer was no.

I was going to have to get out of there. Get somewhere quiet. Think shit through. Figure out the next move. Which might well be: get the hell out of town. Get away from all this crazy shit. Not show my face in public for a year. Goddamn. I was banned from the New York games anyway.

I asked some desultory questions about Brendan. They didn’t know anything, of course. Brendan was a new guy in the scene. Good-looking guy. Got a lot of attention. One night he stopped showing up. They hadn’t heard anything at all.

I got their contact information. Gave them my number. Asked them to call me if they learned anything.

One last question, I said.

Fire away, said Andy.

They were clearly enjoying the attention.

Knitting needles, I said.

Lola got a sneaky smile on her face. His face. Whatever.

You want to know what knitting needles are for? Andy asked with a smile.

Other than knitting.

Sure, he laughed. Well, you know what the prostate is, right?

Yes, I know what the prostate is. I get mine poked once a year by a guy with a rubber glove.

Hah. Well, this is sort of like that. I mean, you know that there’s a certain type of guy, woman, it can be women, too, but it’s usually guys,
who hang around with … us, that they have this need for extreme, I don’t know …

Stimulation, said Lola.

Stimulation, I said.

Right, said Andy.

Don’t tell me this, I said.

Yes, he said. All the way up.

Through the …

Urethra. Right. To the prostate. Stimulation.

Stimulation.

Right.

That’s pretty gross, I said.

Some people might think so, he said with a wink. Some people think it’s … ecstatic.

Let’s not go there. But what I want to know is, I mean, it’s weird and all, and I suppose you should sterilize the thing, you could get an infection. But unless you sort of, Jesus, pushed the thing too hard or something, punctured something, there’s nothing inherently dangerous about this … activity, is there? I mean, it’s not going to kill you or anything, is it?

No more than a lot of shit that goes on, said Andy.

Lola laughed.

Like what?

Andy laughed too.

They both gave me a Look that said, That’s all you’re going to get, buddy.

I got the hell out of there.

I thought about it. Yes. There was something there.

But it wasn’t Brendan’s blood on the thing.

I had learned a lot. But I didn’t feel any closer to the truth.

Yes. Life is like that.

T
HE SECOND
I
STEPPED OUTSIDE
, I was grabbed from behind, thrown face up against the stone wall. My forehead met an unyielding protrusion. My forehead yielded. Something warm and unpleasant
flowed into my mouth. It seemed vaguely familiar. A salty taste. Ah yes. Blood. My own. A gray curtain descended. Scene over.

A new scene opening. Set in the half-world. I felt large, rough hands administering handcuffs. I suspended judgement. It was just happening. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. I’d done some bad things, after all, in my day. Deserved a little punishment …

A familiar voice growled in my ear as I slumped to the ground.

It was saying something about Downtown.

T
HEY BANDAGED MY HEAD
. Splashed cold water in my face. Woke me up. Shoved me into a room. Took my cell phone. Don’t I get a phone call? I asked. They didn’t answer. They took my belt, too. My wallet. My shoelaces. I wasn’t really a suicide risk. But they probably wouldn’t have guessed that, to look at me. I remembered what had met me in the closet mirror, at Sheila’s behest. And that was several traumas ago.