The Martini Shot (15 page)

“Pull over there,” I said, pointing to a spot along the curb where there wasn't no light. “I wanna show you the place I'm talking about.”

Schmidt did it and cut the engine. Across the street were some houses. All except one of them was dark. From the lighted one came fast music, like the colored music Laura had played in her room.

“There it is right there,” I said, meaning the house with the light. I was lying through my teeth. I didn't know who lived there and I sure didn't know if that house had whores. I had never been down here before.

Schmidt turned his head to look at the row house. I slipped my switch knife out of my right pocket and laid it flat against my right leg.

When he turned back to face me, he wasn't smiling no more. He had heard about Bloodfield and he knew he was in it. I think he was scared.

“You bring me down to niggertown, for
what? 
” he said. “To show me a whorehouse?”

“I thought you're gonna like it.”

“Do I look like a man who'd pay to fuck a nigger?
Do
I? You don't know anything about me.”

He was showing his true self now. He was nervous as a cat. My nerves were bad, too. I was sweating through my shirt. I could smell my own stink in the car.

“I know plenty,” I said.

“Yeah?
What
do you know?”

“Pretty car, pretty suits…top-shelf beer. How you get all this, huh?”

“I earned it.”

“As a Pinkerton, eh?”

Schmidt blinked real slow and shook his head. He looked out his window, looking at nothing, wasting time while he decided what he was gonna do. I found the raised button on the pearl handle of my knife. I pushed the button. The blade flicked open and barely made a sound. I held the knife against my leg and turned it so the blade was pointing back.

Sweat rolled down my neck as I looked around. There wasn't nobody out on the street.

Schmidt turned his head. He gripped the steering wheel with his right hand and straightened his arm.

“What do you want?” he said.

“I just wanna know what happened to John.”

Schmidt smiled. All those white teeth. I could see him with his mouth open, his lips stretched, those teeth showing. The way an animal looks after you kill it. Him lying on his back on a slab.

“I heard he drowned,” said Schmidt.

“You think so, eh?”

“Yeah. I guess he couldn't swim.”

“Pretty hard to swim, you got a bullet in your head.”

Schmidt's smile turned down. “Can
you
swim, Bill?”

I brought the knife across real fast and buried it into his armpit. I sunk the blade all the way to the handle. He lost his breath and made a short scream. I twisted the knife. His blood came out like someone was pouring it from a jug. It was warm and it splashed onto my hands. I pulled the knife out, and while he was kicking at the floorboards, I stabbed him a coupla more times in the chest. I musta hit his heart or something because all of the sudden there was plenty of blood all over the car. I'm telling you, the seats were slippery with it. He stopped moving. His eyes were open and they were dead.

I didn't get tangled up about it or nothing like that. I wasn't scared. I opened up his suit jacket and saw a steel revolver with wood grips holstered there. It was small caliber. I didn't touch the gun. I took his wallet out of his trousers, pulled the bills out of it, wiped off the wallet with my shirttail, and threw the empty wallet on the ground. I put the money in my shoe. I fit the blade back into the handle of my switch knife and slipped the knife into my pocket. I put all the empty beer bottles together with the full ones in the paper bag and took the bag with me as I got out of the car. I closed the door soft and wiped off the handle and walked down the street.

I didn't see no one for a couple of blocks. I came to a sewer and I put the bag down the hole. The next block, I came to another sewer and I took off my bloody shirt and threw it down the hole of that one. I was wearing an undershirt, didn't have no sleeves. My pants were black, so you couldn't see the blood. I kept walking toward Northwest.

Someone laughed from deep in an alley and I kept on.

Another block or so I came up on a group of
mavri
standing around the steps of a house. They were smoking cigarettes and drinking from bottles of beer. I wasn't gonna run or nothing. I had to go by them to get home. They stopped talking and gave me hard eyes as I got near them. That's when I saw that one of them was the cook, Raymond, from the kitchen. Our eyes kind of came together, but neither one of us said a word or smiled or even made a nod.

One of the coloreds started to come toward me and Raymond stopped him with the flat of his palm. I walked on.

I walked for a couple of hours, I guess. Somewhere in Northwest I dropped my switch knife down another sewer. When I heard it hit the sewer bottom I started to cry. I wasn't crying 'cause I had killed Schmidt. I didn't give a damn nothing about him. I was crying 'cause my father had given me that knife, and now it was gone. I guess I knew I was gonna be in America forever, and I wasn't never going back to Greece. I'd never see my home or my parents again.

When I got back to my place I washed my hands real good. I opened up a bottle of Abner-Drury and put fire to a Fatima and had myself a seat at the table.

This is where I am right now.

Maybe I'm gonna get caught and maybe I'm not. They're gonna find Schmidt in that neighborhood and they're gonna figure a colored guy killed him for his money. The cops, they're gonna turn Bloodfield upside down. If Raymond tells them he saw me, I'm gonna get the chair. If he doesn't, I'm gonna be free. Either way, what the hell, I can't do nothing about it now.

I'll work at the hotel, get some experience and some money, then open my own place, like Nick Stefanos. Maybe if I can find two nickels to rub together, I'm gonna go to church and talk to that girl, Irene, see if she wants to be my wife. I'm not gonna wait too long. She's clean as a whistle, that one.

I've had my eye on her for some time.

I was up
in my suite in a residence hotel, where the production housed out-of-town talent and department heads, when I heard a knock on my door. It was late, around two in the morning, but we had wrapped less than an hour earlier, and crew kept different hours than straights. Few of us went to sleep as soon as we got home. We had to have a snack, or a couple of drinks, or some smoke, a little television, sex if we could get it. Anything to make us feel normal at the end of the day. Anything that would make us feel that we led normal lives.

I looked through the peephole. Annette was standing out in the carpeted hall. She'd called me minutes earlier on the house phone and asked if I wanted some company. I was expecting her, but still, I liked to watch her out there, waiting for me to open the door. It made my pulse run. Both of us had been single for a long while, but our relationship was private.

I let Annette in and closed the door.

“Hi,” she said, her mouth curved up in a sweet smile. She stepped out of her sandals.

“Hi.”

I kissed her soft lips, held her and stroked her bare arms. She was warm to the touch. She wore tailored velour sweats and a cutoff tee, and her copper-and-brown hair was up and back in a soft band. She was in her early forties, a large-featured woman with green eyes. She was curvy, big-breasted, thick in the thighs, and generous in back. She was olive-skinned and exotic, a Mediterranean girl built like a black woman. She was exactly what I like.

“Good day?” she said.

“Fourteen hours. The director shot too much stuff we'll never use. Anyway, we got the pages. You?”

“A little rough.” It was all she needed to say. I knew she was under the gun. “I could use a glass of wine.”

I opened a bottle of Rodney Strong, a good everyday Merlot that Annette liked, poured it into two short hotel-issue glasses, and took it over to the living room couch, where we had a seat. I lit a couple of candles and programmed my phone to play some tunes through a Bluetooth speaker I took from job to job. The phone and speaker arrangement was my portable stereo. Everything I owned was portable: the push-up stands, my shaving kit, my fold-up Beats, my Swiss Army knife. Everything. I owned a condo in a Mid-Atlantic city, but I lived in hotels.

Annette and I drank wine and talked about our day. We laughed about the bosses, though she was a department head, and technically, I was management, too. Typically, I was on set call-to-wrap, and she popped in at various locations before rehearsal to check out the work of her crew. Then she'd go off to prep the next episode. Seeing her arrive on set wearing one of her many cool, understated outfits was always the highlight of my day. Hats were her trademark. She walked like a cat. She was smart and talented, a true artist. Annette was our art director and she had style.

“You mind if I take this off?” she said, her hands going up under her shirt. “It's too tight.”

“I like tight things.”

“Stop.”

She unfastened her bra, produced it like a magician, and dropped it on the carpet beside the couch.

“Don't forget this.” I took liberties and pulled her T-shirt up over her head.

“You too, Buster.”

“Don't call me Buster. That's a name for a dog.”

“Come on.”

I removed my shirt. We embraced and kissed, both of us naked above the waist, skin to skin. I caressed her and squeezed one of her dark nipples, rolled it between my thumb and forefinger until it was a pebble.

Our tongues mingled. I felt a catch in her breath and heard her moan. She gently pushed me away and chuckled.

“Who's this?” she said, nodding at my speaker.

“The new xx,” I said, and shrugged sheepishly. “Not very original of me, I know.”

“Wine, candles, and make-out music.”

“I'm not as creative as you.”

“It's perfect.”

We kissed some more and had a few laughs. While we talked, I slid my hand beneath her sweats, pushed the crotch of her damp lace panties aside, slipped my longest finger inside her, and stroked her clit. It got warm in the room. She lay back on the couch and arched her back, and I peeled off her pants and thong. Now she was nude. I stripped down to my boxer briefs and crouched over her. I let her pull me free because I knew she liked to. She stroked my pole and took off my briefs, and I got between her and spread her muscular thighs with my knees and rubbed myself against her until she was wet as a waterslide, and then I split her. We fucked for a while, slow and deep, with my feet against the scrolled arm of the couch for leverage. Neither of us allowed ourselves to come. It was too good to end.

“Let's go to my bed,” I said. We were pretty sweaty by then.

I brought the candles, the speaker, and my phone. Annette followed with the glasses and the bottle of wine. Entering my bedroom, I switched the music over to an Anthony Hamilton mix and let that ride. Anthony was our favorite, spiritual and secular, authentic and sublime.

My room was large, with a four-poster bed and floor-to-ceiling windows that gave to a view of the street below and the city skyline. Because it was on the top floor of the hotel, and because there were no nearby buildings as high as mine, it was completely private. Moonlight and candlelight are a heady aphrodisiac, and I kept the curtains open at all times.

I pulled her to me. I took her band off, and her hair fell free about her shoulders. I cupped my hand around the back of her neck, and we made out standing beside my bed. It felt good to both of us, pressed together, her body lush, soft, and hot against mine. She was a good kisser; our mouths fit.

She got onto the bed, atop the blankets, and I spread her out. I held her hands and raised them above her, and I kissed her. I kissed her chest and her inner thighs and everywhere. Her pussy was clean, with a five-o'clock shadow and just a hint of smell. I penetrated her with my thumb while I licked and kissed and pressed my tongue into her swollen button. She talked to me and told me what to do. “There,” she said, and “Yeah,” and she said my name, and then her thighs tensed and shuddered. She spasmed and pushed my head away. I lay back and left her alone to enjoy her last rippling throes. But I only left her for a minute. She was ripe, and I pulled her to the edge of the mattress and stood beside the bed and spread her legs. I fucked her like that, me, looking down and watching myself, thick, plunging into her velvet, standing on the carpet with great purchase, her lying there, her knees bent, taking me in. I turned her face to lick inside her ear and kiss her neck, and then her mouth, and she said, “God,” and said it louder, and I controlled it, and she bucked as she came, this time harder than the last.

When her heart had slowed down, I withdrew from her and handed her a short glass. I took mine off the dresser, and both of us drank some wine.

“Now you,” she said.

I lay on my back, and Annette put a pillow under my head. She spread my legs as I had done for her before, and got between me and played with my dick. She knocked the head of it against the nipples of her pendulous breasts and hit it on her tongue like a hammer to a bell.

“I love your cock,” she said.

“It loves
you.
”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Touch my ass.”

She tickled my anus as she licked my balls and shaft, and slathered her tongue on my helmet. I laced my fingers through her hair and closed my eyes.

“Go,” I said.

I stopped breathing and, like her, invoked a higher power. My orgasm was eye-popping, as I blew a hot load into her mouth. It seemed to last forever, and she took it all.

“Thank you,” I said, my hand still in her hair. I must have been twisting it. It was a mess.

“My pleasure.”

“Sorry. I know that it was a lot. It felt like a lot.”

“You could help me out and empty that thing once in a while.”

“I don't care to spill my seed. I like to save it all for you.”

She moved up and came beside me, rested her head on my chest. It was quiet now, with just the soul music playing in the room. She blinked slowly and shut her eyes, and I listened and waited for her breathing to slow down. Soon, with each of her inhales, I heard a small click. That was the sound of her in sleep. In the candlelight, I watched her.

I checked my wristwatch. It was nearly four a.m. We had a short turnaround, a nine-o'clock call, which meant I had to be up at eight. Four hours' sleep for both of us, but that was workable, and not unusual. It was late in the shoot, and all of us were running on fumes.

A little while later, I touched her shoulder and said, “Annette.” Her eyes fluttered open. I hated to rouse her, but I knew she liked to wake up in her own bed.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

She looked up at me without raising her head. The moon had dropped, and its light came full into the room and it was in her eyes.

“That was nice,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I love you, Vic.”

I made no comment. I studied her face, a mix of affection and disappointment, and felt a rush of emotion. When production wrapped we'd go our separate ways. “If it happened on location, it didn't happen.” That's what was said in our line of work. Maybe it would be like that with me and Annette, too. She'd move on, and so would I. But I knew that she'd always be deep in my head.

Our driver, a Teamster named Louise, picked us up in a white Ford window van at eight thirty. There were five of us standing on the sidewalk as she pulled to the curb. This episode's director, Alan Lomax, out of L.A.; our DP, a Danish cinematographer, Eigil, now spelled Eagle for marketing purposes; the camera operator, Van “Go” Cummings, from Venice, California; the gaffer, Skylar Branson, a young Texan who ran the electric crew; and me, Victor Ohanian, writer/producer. We got into the van.

As was decorum, the director rode in the shotgun bucket beside Louise, a religious woman with kinky blond hair. Van plugged his iPhone into the auxiliary jack of the stereo and programmed some Laurel Canyon singer/songwriter jive into the system. The deal was, Van commandeered the music in the mornings, Skylar (college radio) had the middle of the day, Eagle (jazz) took the post-lunch DJ spot, and I (all over the place) had the ride home. The director listened to whatever we played and was at our mercy.

Skylar handed me the latest
New Yorker.
When he was finished with magazines and novels, he passed them on to me. He was wearing a Stihl chainsaw ball cap and a trumpeter's triangle below his lower lip. He was improbably young for a department head, and very bright. He also sold marijuana to the crew. His girlfriend, Laura, a wardrobe assistant, was in on it, too. It wasn't as if he needed the money. He was a pothead and felt that he was selling happiness to his friends.

“Thanks, buddy.” I slid the magazine into my book bag.

“My pleasure,” he said.

There was no hint of pleasure on his face. He was troubled about something. I knew him well enough to see it. But it was his business, and I didn't push it.

Skylar was a good soul. We'd been friends since the first day of production, though I was practically old enough to be his wayward uncle. I had his back, and he had mine.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” he said. “I just need to work.”

We'd been at it for six months. The shoot was a cop drama for one of the cable networks, based in a southern port city, in a state that offered significant tax credits to film productions. It was a good, long gig. It paid enough to set most of us up for the year. When the money ran out, we'd get on something else. That was what we did.

Our morning ride to the first location was usually low-key. Some read the
USA Today
provided by the hotel; others made phone calls to family. Eagle, Van, and Skylar often discussed the first shot and how it would be lit. Or they discussed their golf game. If any of them or the director had a question about the content or tone of the day's scenes, I tried to answer it. It was business, but not as defined by the straight world. We were playing with many million dollars of studio money, but we dressed as we wanted to, and wore our hair and facial hair as we desired. We thought of ourselves as handsomely compensated rebels. No conventions, no uniforms.

I studied the landscape as we made our way across town. Often, the crew sees more of a city than the locals do, because we have access and security. The low-end neighborhoods, the seedier bars, the rat-and-needle infested alleys, the Mayor's office, police stations, prison and jails, the private mansions, back-of-the-house kitchens, and homeless camps under the freeways. I was the curious type, so that aspect of the job suited me well.

As we neared our destination, we glanced at our call sheets, which detailed our daily shooting schedule. The director was on his cell, talking to his daughter and telling her to have a good day at school. It was early morning in Los Angeles, and she had just woken up.

“Three moves today,” said Eagle, in his heavy Scandi accent. It sounded like “moofs.” He was tall and lean with long, flowing hair and a beard. He looked like a showered Viking.

“Four scenes,” said Van, youthful in his fifties, now on his third marriage. Van was a connoisseur of women and a bit of a philosopher. He sometimes entertained us with his ruminations on romance and the fleeting aspect of life.

“A lot of dialogue in scene thirty-eight,” I said. “Two pages, four people at the table. And then the secretary comes in from the BG and drops the file on the table. She's got a line, too. We'll have to cover that.”

“Why'd you give her a line?” said Van, playfully.

I'd cast the secretary, a young would-be actress, as a day player after seeing her audition. I was just giving her a break. She'd get an extra eight hundred bucks for that one line, and residuals. Maybe someone would notice her and she'd get more work. Plus, she was hot as balls. Van knew me well.