8 Hard To Explain
The voice from the stairs was mellifluous and amused. “My god, it’s like a Dickens novel down there. Is little Nell alive? No, no. Do over. ‘It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.’ Or something like that.”
All eyes turned toward the woman descending the staircase. Creamy skin, dull auburn hair twisted into a knot, brown jeans under a brushed velour jacket the color of ripe persimmons. So vivid was her presence that she appeared to smolder against the somber wood of her surroundings. The room more or less erupted.
“Angela?” Vinnie was surprised, but pleased.
“Angela!” John was stunned, but perturbed.
“Angela, Angela, Angela,” Julio declaimed, one hand over his heart. Everybody looked at him. “What? I was feeling marginalized.”
“I thought you were going to meet us in Chicago.” Vinnie turned glowingly to John. “But how do you know -“
“How do I know-“ John couldn’t believe the question.
“She said she came to pay her respects,” John’s mother was perhaps the most bewildered of all.
“It occurs to me,” John’s father interposed, furtively scratching his head under the wig, “that the bank will be closing soon.”
“My first wife,” John clarified, flashing on Vegas, a frenzied stopover between the civil war in Bosnia and the dirty war in Guatemala, mad sex that destroyed a hotel room and went on without respite or mercy for three dimly recollected days. Followed by a return to sanity and a sheepish annulment.
“My first wife-to-be,” Vinnie’s head was about to explode. Angela smiled caressingly up at him on her way to the parlor. Her fiancée and ex-husband stood as if turned to twin pillars of salt.
“You know what?” Julio asked, putting an arm around Andrew and propelling him away from the gathering storm. “We’ll be right back.” He waved and followed John’s dad out the front door.
“Nobody else showed up. None of your high school friends, none of your art school buddies or brothers in arms,” John’s mother fretted. “Nobody had the guts or the decency, unless you count those mad dog anti-Baptists.” She sank into a chair.
“You forgot your friendly neighborhood G-men,” Angela noted, moving one of the lace curtains ever so slightly in order to peek out. “Semper fido.”
“Honeybunch, you never mentioned you were married before,” Vinnie called, emphatically not looking at John.
“It was more of a youthful indiscretion,” she said airily. “A post-graduate project, really. We were testing a series of psychoactive substances and - things got a little out of hand.”
“Oh. Uh huh. All in a day’s work.” Vinnie was looking at John, for whom the dawn was breaking.
“Wait. That was - a science experiment? With me as lab rat?”
“Well, it wasn’t just you. I was there, along with our whole team. And the entire hotel participated. Albeit,” she admitted a little sheepishly, “without voluntary informed consent.”
“Dear lord!” John’s mother ejaculated. “Mengele is alive and well.”
“And working for the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology,” John said.
“Our project lead wanted to use a college fraternity. I rather thought I took the high road,” Angela sniffed.
“I rather thought you said you were some kind of ethicist,” Vinnie’s eyes and tone were hardening, his heart sinking. Here we go again, his brain was saying. Fucking women.
“As a matter of fact, I did switch to neuroethics after that. Because of that. The ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. Oh dear,” she dropped the curtain. “We might want to continue this discussion in the car.”
The doorbell rang. Vinnie went for his Glock and John’s mother bristled.
“Young man, we may have more guns than people in this country -
“More than the next seven failed states combined,” Angela corroborated.
“ - but this home is a weapon-free zone,” John’s mother insisted.
“Yeah, I can appreciate the sentiment,” Vinnie said soothingly, still aiming for the door, “but these guys are from the school of shoot-first-get a search warrant-later, if you know what I mean.”
John signaled for everyone to shut the fuck up and jerked his head toward the kitchen. Vinnie scraped the audio jammer off the wall, grimacing as John’s mother examined the four little white splotches where the suction cups had caused the wallpaper to part company with the plaster. The door knocker rapped smartly, and John’s mother had the sense to call out, “Just a minute! Land sakes!” She shooed Vinnie away, blew John a kiss, and - armed only with an offer of prairie hospitality and homemade pie - prepared to do battle for the life of her cub. John was not betting on the guys with the guns.
John hurried Vinnie and Angela along the central hallway and through a swinging door into an old fashioned kitchen with a rose-patterned linoleum floor and Eisenhower-era appliances. The smell of pecan pie was redolent. A canary fluttered in a cage in the breakfast nook. John pulled out a Sig 9mm and checked the back porch. No Feds. There were two vehicles parked beneath the porte-cochere: his father’s maroon 1948 Ford and a sleek, cream-colored hearse.
“Where’s the car?” John hissed frantically, hearing his mother striking up a conversation a few rooms behind him.
“Right there,” Angela hissed back. The two men looked at each other over her head.
“That is not what we’re driving to our wedding,” Vinnie objected. “You cannot be serious.”
“Well.” She gave him a wide-eyed look in which the faintest hint of mischief may have lurked and pointed out one relevant and overlooked fact. “After all, it is white.”
9 Breaking Into Cars
“And how is it you know our Saki?” the charming man wanted to know.
He was sitting beside Jane in the galley of the airplane, a cozy wood paneled utility area normally reserved for ‘the help’ - flight attendants, spare pilots, so-called ‘close protection operatives.’ Several hours into their transatlantic flight, he had grown bored with his other playmates and sought her out. As she had known he would, based on Saki’s shrewd observations and her own experience with his type - hypersexual, predatory, alpha male.
“We were at school together.”
“Do they have schools in America? I was under the impression that education was not widespread. That you have television instead.” His dark eyes dared her to contradict him.
“The true opiate of the masses,” Jane agreed.
“Reform school.” Saki had left the party in the main cabin to check on Jane. She had ditched her coat and you could see her naked breasts quite clearly through the wife beater she was wearing. “They got me for drinking and driving while young, hot, and Asian. With Jane, it was breaking into cars.”
“So you were bad girls, then?” His thick mane of hair was untarnished silver, but he had the energy and robust appearance of a much younger man. Aging stallion, Jane thought. Without turning her head she reached out and briefly caressed Saki’s arm with the back of her hand. His dark eyes followed her every move.
“Incorrigible. And I have the juvenile record to prove it,” Saki said, perching on the arm of Jane’s seat and twining her long clever fingers in Jane’s.
“A couple of dangerous characters,” he surveyed them both and emptied his wine glass. “I wonder my bodyguards allowed you on the plane.”
“If the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?” Jane murmured.
The charming man raised an eyebrow. “You allow Oscar Wilde in your jails?”
“And we send some of our finest criminals to Congress. Go figure,” Jane smiled.
“Not for the first time you make me regret my years of imprisonment at the Sorbonne.” He glanced moodily toward the main cabin, where something approaching an orgy was in progress.
“And yet one meets such inter
esting and useful people in prison. It can be a life-changing experience,” Jane rose gracefully and bent to reach for his empty wine glass. Their fingers met fleetingly and he turned in his seat to watch as she went to pour him a refill. She picked up the bottle to study the label, allowing him ample time to gauge her physical perfections from a rear perspective. She put the bottle down, and with her back still turned to him, swirled the wine in the glass with the precision of a master sommelier. Inhaled. “Like all the 2000s. Really stunning. Opulent.” She held the glass up to admire its deep color. “It could almost have come from Napa.”
The charming man was at her side in a flash, making the cutest stereotypical sound of Gallic disapprobation imaginable. Like a wet Bresse hen. “Oh, luh luh luh luh luh,” he clucked. The entrance of a very beautiful, very disheveled, very nude young blonde failed utterly to distract him. He snatched the glass from Jane, eying her sternly. He swirled the wine himself and buried his nose in the glass.
“This is a classic, classic Old World Bordeaux. The bouquet, the color -“
“The fruit-forwardness? The drinkability? No, no that’s New World all the way.”
“Dodo,” the blonde nymph sighed. The object of her desires paid no attention. Instead, he took a gulp of wine and swished it around like mouthwash, rolling it back and forth across his palate, thrusting with his tongue, aspirating briefly to catch any overlooked aromas, considering Jane and the wine with undivided intensity. Finally, he swallowed.
“I cannot agree. There is a structure there, an elegance that American wines can only dream of.”
“Yet that is the very wine that Americans beat - twice. In 1976 and again just five years ago.”
“Dodo,” the young woman placed herself between Jane and the charming man, winding her siren arms around his aging neck. “It’s my turn. It says so on the schedule.”
The charming man looked vexed a moment, then gave Jane a droll roll of the eyes over the head of the blonde lamprey clamped to his side. He took another slug of wine and pointed an accusing finger at Jane, “This discussion is not finished. You’re invited to join us,” he nodded toward the main cabin. “If you wish.”
“Maybe next time,” Jane demurred. “I’d like to hear what you have to say about the American style.”
“There is no such thing,” he said over his shoulder, smacking the blonde’s naked ass and propelling her ahead of him through the partition. “What you’re talking about is the International style. Coming, Saki?” For answer, Saki went to him, took his face between her hands and gave him a long, salacious, penetrating kiss, which ended with her groping his crotch as he bit her neck. Jane watched quizzically, until Saki pushed the charming man away.
“Don’t give it all to that stupid girl. If you know what’s good for you,” Saki admonished. She had gotten his blood up and he was breathing heavily.
“Don’t make me wait too long,” he said, and Jane could not tell if he meant it as a plea, a command, or a warning.
“Just for that, it will be a little longer,” Saki taunted. He inclined his head by way of acceptance and passed into the dimly lit main cabin, pulling the divider closed behind him. The erotic pulse of club music faded to background noise. Saki sank back onto the arm of Jane’s chair, swiveled slightly and collapsed sideways onto the seat.
“Thought he’d never leave. Can we talk?”
Jane was inspecting the well-stocked galley. “There are cameras present. But I expect you know that. I’m more interested in - can we eat?”
“Oh sure, Dodo’s got everything.”
“I’ll say. Croissants from Le Meurice? And salmon crème? I knew the IMF was responsible for hell on earth, but I had no idea they owned a stake in heaven too.”
“IM-what?”
“I-M, U-M, We-M Fucked, basically. Croissant?” Jane carried a plate and a bottle of water back to the seating area.
“No. Yes. And a mimosa. I seriously need a mimosa.” Clutching a croissant in her teeth the way a dog holds a bone, Saki went hunting for OJ and champagne. Found a split and a juice box, which she unceremoniously emptied via a double stream of foam and Floridian gold into an oversized brandy snifter. She sat down opposite Jane, crossed her legs, and took a bite of croissant. “Go on,” she said, mouth full.
“You first,” Jane retorted.
“You could at least call a person.”
“I was letting the dead past bury its dead?”
“I cried my eyes out. You may have seen some of my campaigns from that period - Member of the Funeral for YSL? Goth Chic for Galliano? The shutterbugs ate it up. Some of my best stuff.” Saki snapped her fingers. “Speaking of dead. You’re not drinking.”
“I’m hydrating,” Jane waggled her water bottle. “I’m practicing good in-flight hygiene. Besides,” she admitted, almost against her will, “John drinks enough for both of us.”
“Ah ha!” Saki pounced. “I knew it.”
“You’re drinking enough for both of us,” Jane pointed out tartly.
“So are you guys finito?” When Jane took a minute to answer, Saki was exuberant. “Great! End of conversation. You’re coming home with me.”
“No, I’m going to find John and have a few things out. Man to man.”
“You never chased after me that way,” Saki pouted.
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t chase after John,” Jane admitted.
“You should stick to the rules. You should forget his sorry gaijin ass. Give me one good reason -“ Saki stopped and leaned forward to stare at Jane. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah, don’t go there,” Jane growled.
“But - is that even possible?”
Jane threw up her hands. “After 5 years of anorexia and 20 years without a single visit from Auntie Flo I didn’t think so. And did I mention I’m flying on one ovary after that cockup in Djibouti?”
“Damn,” Sake said. “That sucks. Aren’t we too old or something?”
“Thank you. You are too kind. Yes, I’m overjoyed and I’m sure John will be too. If he can stop sucking face with other women long enough for me to tell him.”
Saki’s face expressed utter disgust. “Well, he sounds like a shit. Correction. A perfect shit. Like all men. So when he confirms his innate and irredeemable shitosity, you need to call me and we’ll do what we always said. We’ll blow this popcorn stand and run away together.”
“There’s a place for us,” Jane sang. She dug through her handbag, trying to decide what was more ludicrous, the philandering Saki casting stones at John or the idea of Saki in loco parentis. Accent on ‘loco.’ . “Huh,” she said at last, and ran her hand around the edges of her seat. Stood up to search the floor.
“Problem?” Saki asked.
“To call you, I would need your phone number. But I seem to have lost my phone.”
“Dodo took it,” Saki stated, matter-of-factly. “He steals stuff all the time.”
“Do tell. Obvious remarks about the true criminal class aside, what the fuck?”
“He likes you. He does it for fun. I saw him do it. And -” Saki held up the errant phone. She had stolen it back.
“OK. Well. Fair enough. Because - just for fun?” Jane took the phone and typed a few words. Held them up for Saki to see. “I ROOFIED HIS DRINK.”
10 Bizness
“So who’s driving?” Vinnie whispered through clenched teeth, trying in vain to open the driver’s side as he glowered over the hearse at the fair Angela.
“The dwarf, of course,” Angela said, lifting one shoulder in playful disdain. The driver’s side window unscrolled and Vinnie looked down to find the driver’s seat taken by a smallish human being with waifish eyes and floppy bangs who would not have been able to see over the steering wheel were it not for the aid and support of a booster cushion. The dwarf waved cheerlessly and held up an iPad.
“Get in,” the iPad said ominously. It sounded, John tho
ught, like actor Samuel L. Jackson doing a disaster movie voiceover - though in that case it probably would have been ‘Get the fuck in’. Angela slid gracefully in beside the dwarf, leaving John and Vinnie facing one another over the roof of the hearse. The engine was already running and the hearse started to glide soundlessly away, as only a meticulously maintained 1959 Cadillac Superior Crown Royale hearse can glide. John and Vinnie dove to grab the receding door handles. They managed to scramble into the jump seats in the rear of the rapidly accelerating hearse. The hearse cleared the back of the house via an unpaved back street. John and Vinnie almost knocked heads checking the rear windows. So far, no feds. Meanwhile, the dwarf touched some numbers on the iPad’s onscreen keyboard and the iPad spoke again, jauntily. “Welcome aboard.”
“I thought we were going to Chicago, Sugarplum,” Vinnie said over his shoulder.
“What makes you think we aren’t, Buttercup?” Angela said over hers.
“This, um, guy - is going to drive us from Oklahoma to Illinois?”
“And on to Detroit. By way of Chicago, Chicago,” Angela sang. “You know - the town that Billy Sunday couldn’t shut down?”
“Next stop, the Big Onion!” the iPad announced, in the direst of tones.
“Who IS this guy?” Vinnie faced forward in bewilderment and pointed at the dwarf.
“Leo Myshkin at your service,” the iPad responded with grim exuberance. “Entrepreneur extraordinaire.”
“The rental car died at the cemetery,” Angela said. “And Leo offered to drive us wherever we needed to go.”
“Have hearse, will travel,” the voice of Samuel L. Jackson corroborated.
“Nobody in town would touch the memorial service. No offense, John-John,” Angela said. “It’s what we in the trade call a textbook case of false consciousness. The media called you a terrorist and poof! You were a terrorist. Between your status as enemy of the people and your folks’ status as enemies of Big Oil, the Powers-That-Be have managed to ban the very idea of you in these parts. They didn’t want to give you so much as a stone marker in the mission graveyard. And they wouldn’t have if it weren’t for your daddy’s tribal connections. The media had a field day. ‘Crystal City Bomber Ceremony Shunned by Locals.’ Leo came all the way from - where did you say?”
“New Jersey,” the iPad replied, with gusto.
“New Jersey. Your mom had to go all the way to New Jersey to find a hearse.”
“Not that she needed a hearse,” John pointed out. “Since there were no remains.”
“She needed a hearse because she was told she couldn’t have one. To drive to the funeral and back again. I think it was gutsy of her, given the times. And it was gutsy of Leo. Is gutsy,” Angela corrected herself. “After all, how often do people get into your car waving guns? You’re taking it awfully well,” Angela told Leo, approvingly.
“È tutto business,” Leo demurred in his own voice, which had a slight Russian lilt. He shrugged modestly. “You need a hearse, I gotta hearse. Besides - I come from guns.