Ringer (15 page)

“Dear one, I am not in the mood to bargain, but shall we say eighty for the whole thing? I will be sleeping in until morning, so you can, too, if you want. It is late, and customers here are thinning.”

“I hate to ask this of a compatriot, but I need to make sure you can afford a movie.”

Paco pulled a wad of twenties from his pocket, just part of what he’d stolen from John’s wallet.

She turned away, looking at the passing cars, and it seemed as if she were going to ignore him. Her hand reached out to his, and she led him down the block, past the other girls, who said things like “Chica, I’ll see you for breakfast” and “Firecracker’s fuse is lit.”

They went down an alley and emerged on another, busier street with gas stations and fast-food restaurants. A few doors down was a sign:
SOUTHERN BELLE MOTOR LODGE
. It was bilevel, blue, with doors facing out toward the parking lot, the office at the end near the driveway entrance. There were rooms on both sides of the motel, front and back, those on the first floor with parking spaces in front of them, the second floor fronted by a continuous porch from which the rooms were accessed.

There was a corridor off the parking lot into the motel, and past the ice machine were steps up to the second level. Firecracker led Paco to the back and all the way to the end. She unlocked the door with a key on a bungee around her wrist and shoved the door open.

The room smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and sanitizer, but the bed was made. Except for beverage rings on the sparse furniture, the place looked clean. It was certainly the nicest place Paco had had to bunk since he left Juárez.

He handed Firecracker the eighty dollars. She pulled off her tube top, wrapped the money and her key in the spandex garment, and wedged it behind the TV. Cupping her breasts, she pointed the large brown nipples at Paco like they were weapons.

Subtitles, please:

“You want me from the front or the back, Bob?”

Paco pulled off his black fringed jacket and draped it over the TV.

“I want you on the bed.”

Not exactly as good as what I had going in Dixie’s apartment, was it? Well, each man has to live within his means, yes? Just the same, Firecracker’s tits should help cement our R rating and keep male audience members alert.

Let us cut to the outside of the motel room. From the porch we see the room window, and we see the interior light beyond the curtain go out. We fade from night to first light, the faintest of sunrise glowing pink in the darkened window of Paco’s motel room.

The early morning calm was shattered by a scream. A skinny black woman with long blond hair stumbled and fell in front of Paco’s door. A bald, hairy white man in white briefs rushed up to the prostitute, whipping her with a belt. The girl screamed for mercy.

The motel door swung open, and Paco stepped forward, dressed in just his track pants. He looked down at the victim, then at her tormentor.

The bald, hairy white man stopped thrashing the girl long enough to look Paco in the eye, and then resumed his punishment.

Paco shoved the tormentor, flipping the bald, hairy white man over the railing and down to the parking lot where he landed off-screen with a crunch.

Paco stepped calmly back into his motel room and closed the door.

Whimpering, the skinny black girl picked up her long blond wig and scurried out of frame.

Paco opened the door again, and he was dressed and in the act of donning his leather jacket. He walked down the porch to the exit, the sound of approaching sirens in the distance.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

EVEN AS THE SUN’S ROSY
orb glowed low over a seedy Virginia motel, it warmed the cold glass and steel of midtown Manhattan, the denizens stirring in the brightening murk of their bedrooms.

Some, like Robert Tyson Grant, awoke alone and troubled, and went immediately for a swim in the penthouse pool.

Others, like me, briefly awoke entwined and spent with Grant’s girlfriend, with no thoughts of swimming pools.

Still others awoke entwined and spent, but with thoughts of swimming pools and East Hampton mansions.

One might well have surmised that Purity found herself that morning in the bed of a bartender, or of a punk rocker, or of a rave club Romeo or worse still.

The audience will be somewhat surprised when the camera pans from where Purity is curled up with a pillow to a vacant spot in the bed next to her. The apartment is modest but clean, the walls checkered with black-and-white photos of Manhattan. The bathroom door is open and provides the only light in the room. Who do we see emerge freshly showered with a towel around his waist?

Skip Baker, the reporter.

As I think Lincoln once said, publicity makes strange bedfellows.

Skip sauntered to the bed and sat in the vacant spot. Grabbing Purity’s hip, he gave it a shake. “Up!”

She rolled over, the blond pigtails draped across green eyes shriveled by slumber. “Give me one good reason?”

“I can give you more reasons than that, babe, but I’ll start with: I have to get to work.”

“Work on what?”

“The continuing adventures of Purity Grant, of course.”

Purity hugged a pillow and rubbed her nose in it. “What happens in this installment?”

“I have to track down your Prince Charming.”

“And that’s certainly not you.”

“Certainly not. The guy in the white suit who caught you.”

“Who was he?”

“If I knew, I might not have to kick you out of here so soon. Besides, I thought we had a deal. No questions.”

“No
probing
questions. That was an
incidental
question.”

“Why’d you pick him to faint on?”

“Would you have caught me?”

“Good point.”

“Ass.”

“If I find this guy, you want me to tell you where to find him?”

“Why would I want to find a strange man in a white suit, even if he did keep me from bashing my skull on the courthouse’s marble floor?”

“Makes a nice story, that’s why.”

“Is that really all I am to you? A comic strip character?”

Skip patted her hip. “Not only.”

“You suck, Skip, you know that?”

He smiled and cocked an eyebrow at her. “I’ll bet you I’m one of the few people who treats you like a person and not a celebrity or a belt notch. Don’t knock it. I may be the only friend you have.”

Purity rolled to her back, hands over her face. “Yeah, that would be about the size of it.”

“I don’t lecture you, I don’t tell you what to do, and yet I’m always here when you want me. So I
suck
? Jeez, Purity, I wish I had someone like that.”

“You’re just after Purity stories.”

“And you, babe, are after stories, too, aren’t you?”

Purity took her hands away from her face and glared at him. “We also said no headshrinking, remember?”

“That’s merely an
incidental
statement of fact. Let’s get you in the shower. That’ll wake you up.”

“Wake up for what? So they can ship me back to East Hampton? Then to rehab? I don’t need rehab. That’s just where they send anybody who doesn’t play by the rules.”

“Do I need to point out that you are legally an adult? Only the courts can imprison you, Purity. Well, one other person, but we said no headshrinking.” Skip rolled to her side of the bed, took her hand, and lifted her to her feet, the sheets sliding off of her rumpled but fantastically lithe young body. “Let’s go.”

“Any time you want to take the gloves off, I’m ready, Baker. I might just tunnel under the wire yet. I have a meeting today with some people.”

“People?”

“People.”

“People who want to pay you money to do something so that you won’t have to rely on the trust fund Robert Tyson Grant’s holding out on you?”

“Watch TN2.com, maybe you’ll find out before the
Daily Post
does.” Purity stumbled toward the bathroom, her little butt swaying behind those slim tanned hips, the pigtails licking her shoulders.

I bite my hand just thinking of it. It is not for me to speak for other men, but for me, women are at their most endearing in the morning, complete with sheet wrinkles on their behinds, mascara-smeared eyes, tangled hair, and breasts posed as God intended. I suppose that is partially because when I witness this it means there has been a night of adventure, but more so because you now see the woman and her body at ease. While this body may have been spectacular and enchanting beyond all distraction the night before in fancy panties and bra, carefully scented, and the eyes painted to allure, there is a deeper appreciation of the female form to be had when it is fresh from between the sheets and natural. I suppose it is like the beauty of a sunrise compared to the glitter of Times Square. Women have a different scent in the morning, too. This fragrance is at once gently yeasty and salty, like fresh-baked baguettes, especially behind the ears and along the nape of the neck and all the way down the back to that depression at the base of the spine where the aroma is slightly nutty, the spot on which the behind seems to pivot as they walk. Were I a poet, I could write volumes on that spot.

Excuse the digression. I would apologize, except that when it comes to women, it is clear that I have the soul of a tormented artist who devours with his mind.

Purity swayed to the bathroom door and grasped the door frame. She cocked a leg and looked back at Skip from under her hair. “So are you going to write a happy ending for me?” Her eye and tone were at once mocking and challenging.

Skip walked over to the bathroom door and kissed her on the head. “I
write
the stories. You
make
the stories. It’s as simple as that.”

“Is it?” Purity latched onto his towel at the waist and pulled him into the bathroom.

Skip closed the door behind them, the wedge of light collapsing and leaving us in the dark.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

IT WAS A NIGHT OF
passions for the players of my small tragedy, beginning with the sublime and following through to the tawdry. Everybody except Grant got laid.

So let us come full circle.

Like Purity, I awoke to find my bedmate missing, so maybe the camera finds me in exactly the same position in the bed as she was, and moves the same way across the bed toward the bathroom. Ah, but when the camera pans to the bathroom door, it is open but dark.

I arose, with a sheet wrapped around me. Despite my body being worthy of display, I certainly cannot imagine we are showing anything more than a mere glimpse of my buttocks. This seems to be the convention in film, though perhaps you can explain to me at the premiere why this is so. Ah, of course, I won’t be at the premiere, I will be dead—you would think I could not forget this regrettable state of affairs, yet I am immersed in telling this story as fast as I can and as completely as possible, with as few digressions as possible because I can little afford the time. I personally am not a connoisseur of the penis. Mine is just there attached to my front, magnificent and wily as he should be. Those belonging to other men are like some beast worm from Pluto that if you did not know what it was you would smash it with a broom and burn it in the leaf pile. Yet I am sure this is different for women, and perhaps the penis as a general form is as pleasing to them as the female delights are to me. So I am not sure why a good-looking penis like mine or perhaps Jimmy Smits’s is not worthy for a screen debut.

Where was I? Ah. So with the sheet wrapped around me I left the bedroom and went hunting for Dixie—and I mean
hunting
. When you bed someone with a body like hers, you must make the most of the access you have to it. The glasses and bottles and undergarments and pants and shirts that had been strewn about the couch were missing.

There was, however, a note on the bar.

Morty—I will make arrangements for you to have access to Purity and to set things right ASAP with the ring. Will contact you at your hotel. Close the door behind you. XOD

PS: Cheers to the health of the chickens.

Alas, it was not the first time that I had arisen to find that a woman was, shall we say, somewhat doubtful of her choices the previous evening. Such is the nature of passion that reason finds itself shamefaced, yes? Yet this was a novel turn of events. Dixie, who had been jealous of Purity, was now relinquishing me to her? Perhaps Dixie was gaining some satisfaction knowing that she had me first? I marveled at the multifaceted gem that is a woman. Yet as I said, I no longer viewed Purity as the object of passion. While I was touched by this selfless gesture by Dixie, I had no intention of accepting it.

I found my clothing neatly hung in the bathroom. Dressed, I strode from the lobby, full of heart for having won the desire and passions of such a delicious woman as Dixie, emboldened with the knowledge that a new day might bring further delights. At the very least, a further delight in the form of a grilled cheese sandwich.

Speaking of grilled cheese sandwiches, Dixie was meeting with Robert at the Red Flame Diner, in the same back booth in which I had introduced myself to the Grab-A-Lot mogul.

Perhaps as a segue we could have a close-up of a grilled cheese sandwich on one table and pan over to a close-up of a grapefruit and black coffee being set on the Formica in front of Dixie, and whole wheat toast and tomato juice being set in front of Grant. Between the two breakfasts, Grant slaps down a tabloid. On its front page is a picture of me in my white suit holding Purity Grant in my arms. The headline read:
GUARDIAN ANGEL?

We don’t have to stay in a close-up of their breakfast. It is probably best that the camera pull back, and perhaps watch the conversation through the window of the diner, extras posing as pedestrians passing briefly between us and our characters. If you used real pedestrians they might linger and block our view.

Dixie was in yellow slacks and yellow and black polka-dot halter top. Grant was in a blue serge suit with an open-collar white shirt.

“Well, our Mexican surely can’t kill her now, can he?” Grant stabbed his hand at the tabloid picture.