“Sure, we wait and see what happens,” the paralegal said. “It's just like dropping a bomb.”
“I see,” said Kipper Garth. Just what he needed in his life. A bomb.
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FREDDIE
was napping in his office at the Gay Bidet when one of the ticket girls stuck her head in the doorway and said there was a man wanted to see him. Right away Freddie didn't like the looks of the guy, and would have taken him for a cop except that cops don't dress so good. The other thing Freddie didn't like about the guy was the way he kept looking around the place with his nose twitching up in the air like a swamp rabbit, like there was something about the place that really stunk. Freddie didn't appreciate that.
“This isn't what I expected,” the man said.
“The fuck you expect, Regine's?” Boldly Freddie took the offensive.
“This isn't a gay bar?” the man asked, “I assumed from the name . . .”
Freddie said, “I didn't name the place, pal. All I know is, it rhymes. That doesn't automatically make it no fruit bar. Now state your business or beat it.”
“I need to see one of your bouncers.”
“What for?”
The man said, “I'm his doctor.”
“He sick?”
“I don't know until I see him,” said Rudy Graveline.
Freddie was skeptical. Maybe the guy was a doctor, maybe not; these days everybody was wearing white silk suits.
“Which of my security personnel you want to see?” asked Freddie.
“He's quite a big man.”
“They're all big, mister. I don't hire no munchkins.”
“This one is extremely tall and thin. His face is heavily scarred, and he's missing his left hand.”
“Don't know him,” Freddie said, playing it safe. In case the guy was a clever bail bondsman or an undercover cop with a wardrobe budget.
Rudy said: “But he told me he works here.”
Freddie shook his head and made sucking sounds through his front teeth. “I have a large staff, mister, and turnover to match. Not everybody can take the noise.” He jerked a brown thumb toward the fiberboard wall, which was vibrating from the music on the other side.
“Sounds like an excellent band,” Rudy said lamely.
“Cathy and the Catheters,” Freddie reported with a shrug. “Queen of slut rock, all the way from London.” He pushed himself to his feet and stretched. “Sorry I can't help you, misterâ”
At that instant the ticket girl flung open the door and told Freddie that a terrible fight had broken out and he better come quick. Rudy Graveline was huffing at Freddie's heels by the time a path had been cleared to the front of the stage. There a gang of anorexic Nazi skinheads had taken on a gang of flabby redneck bikers in a dispute over tattoosâspecifically, whose was the baddest. The battle had been joined by a cadre of heavyset bouncers, each sporting a pink Gay Bidet T-shirt with the word SECURITY stenciled on the back. The vicious fighting seemed only to inspire more volume from the band and more random slam-dancing from the other punkers.
Towering above the melee was Chemo himself, his T-shirt ragged and bloody, and a look of baleful concentration on his face. Even through the blinding strobes, Rudy Graveline could see that the Weed Whacker attached to Chemo's stub was unsheathed and fully operative; the monofilament cutter was spinning so rapidly that it appeared transparent and harmless, like a hologram. In horror Rudy watched Chemo lower the buzzing device into the tangle of humanityâthe ensuing screams rose plangently over the music. As if by prearrangement, the other bouncers backed off and let Chemo work, while Freddie supervised from atop an overturned amplifier.
The fighting subsided quickly. Splints and bandages were handed out to fallen bikers and skinheads alike, while the band took a break. An expression of fatherly admiration in his shoe-button eyes, Freddie patted Chemo on the shoulder, then disappeared backstage. Rudy Graveline worked his way through the sweaty crowd, stepping over the wounded and semiconscious until he reached Chemo's side.
“Well, that was amazing,” Rudy said.
Chemo glanced down at him and scowled. “Fucking battery died. I hope that's it for the night.”
The surgeon said, “We really need to talk.”
“Yes,” Chemo agreed. “We sure do.”
As soon as Chemo and Rudy went backstage, they ran into Freddie, Cathy, and two of the Catheters sharing some hash in a glass pipe. Through a puff of blue smoke Freddie said to Chemo: “This jerkoff claimed he's your doctor.”
“Was,” Chemo said. “Can we use the dressing room?”
“Anything you want,” Freddie said.
“Watch out for my python,” Cathy cautioned.
The dressing room was not what Rudy had expected. There was a folding card table, an old-fashioned coat rack, a blue velour sofa, a jagged triangle of broken mirror on the wall, and, in one corner, an Igloo cooler full of Heinekens. On the naked floor was a low flat cage made from plywood and chicken wire in which resided a nine-foot Burmese python, the signature of Cathy's big encore.
Rudy Graveline took a chair at the card table while Chemo stretched out on the whorehouse sofa.
Rudy said: “I was worried when you didn't call from New York. What happened?”
Chemo ran a whitish tongue across his lip. “Aren't you even going to ask about my face, how it's healing?”
The doctor seemed impatient. “It looks fine from here. It looks like the dermabrasion is taking nicely.”
“As if you'd know.”
Rudy's mouth twitched. “Now what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you're a fucking menace to society. I'm getting myself another doctorâMaggie's picking one out for me.”
Rudy Graveline felt the back of his neck go damp. It wasn't as if he had not expected problems with Chemoâthat was the reason for choosing Roberto Pepsical and his crooked cops as a contingency. But it was merely failure, not betrayal, that Rudy had anticipated from his homicidal stork.
“Maggie?” the doctor said. “Maggie Gonzalez?”
“Yeah, that's the one. We had a long talk, she told me some things.”
“Talking to her wasn't the plan,” Rudy said.
“Yeah, well, the plan has been changed.” Chemo reached into the Igloo cooler and got a beer. He twisted off the cap, tilted the bottle to his lips, and glowered at the doctor the whole time he gulped it down. Then he belched once and said: “You tried to gyp me.”
Rudy said, “That's simply not true.”
“You didn't tell me the stakes. You didn't tell me about the Barletta girl.”
The color washed from Rudy's face. Stonily he stared into his own lap. Suddenly his silk Armani suit seemed as hot and heavy as an army blanket.
Chemo rolled the empty Heineken bottle across the bare terrazzo floor until it clanked to rest against the snake cage. The sleek green python flicked its tongue once, then went back to sleep.
Chemo said, “And all this time, I thought you knew what the fuck you were doing. I trusted you with my own face.” He laughed harshly and burped again. “Jesus H. Christ, I bet your own family won't let you carve the bird on Thanksgiving, am I right?”
In a thin abraded voice, Rudy Graveline said: “So Maggie is still alive.”
“Yeah, and she's going to stay that way as long as I say so.”
Chemo swung his spidery legs off the sofa and sat up, straight as a lodgepole. “Because if anything should happen to her, you are going to be instantly famous. I'm talking TV, Dr. Frankenstein.”
By now Rudy was having difficulty catching his breath.
Chemo went on. “Your nurse is a smart girl. She made three videotapes for insurance. Two of them are locked up safe and sound in New York. The other . . . well, you'd better pray that I find it before it finds you.”
“Go do it.” Rudy's voice was toneless and weak.
“Naturally this will be very expensive.”
“Whatever you need,” the doctor croaked. This was a scenario he had never foreseen, something beyond his worst screaming nightmares.
“I didn't realize plastic surgeons made so much dough,” Chemo remarked. “Maggie was telling me.”
“The overhead,” Rudy said, fumbling, “is sky-high.”
“Well, yours just got higher by seven feet.” Chemo produced a small aerosol can of WD-40 and began lubricating the rotor mechanism of the Weed Whacker. Without glancing up from his chore, he said, “By the way, Frankenstein, you're getting off easy. Last time a doctor screwed me over, I broke his frigging neck.”
In his mental catacomb Rudy clearly heard the snap of the old dermatologist's spine, watched as the electrolysis needle fell from the old man's lifeless hand and clattered on the office floor.
As soon as he regained his composure, Rudy asked, “Who's got the missing tape?”
“Oh, take a wild guess.” There was amusement in Chemo's dry tone.
“Shit,” said Rudy Graveline.
“My sentiments exactly.”
CHAPTER 22
REYNALDO
Flemm hadn't even finished explaining the plan before Willie, the cameraman, interrupted. “What about Christina?” he asked. “What does she say?”
“Christina is tied up on another project.”
Willie eyed him skeptically. “What project?”
“That's not important.”
Willie didn't give up; he was accustomed to Reynaldo treating him like hired help. “She in New York?”
Reynaldo said, “She could be in New Delhi for all I care. Point is, I'm producing the Barletta segment. Get used to it, buddy.”
Willie settled back to sip his planter's punch and enjoy the rosy tropical dusk. They had a deck table facing the ocean at an outdoor bar, not far from the Sonesta on Key Biscayne. Reynaldo Flemm was nursing a Perrier, so Willie was confident of having the upper hand. Reynaldo was the only person he knew who blabbed more when he was sober than when he was drunk. Right now Reynaldo was blabbing about his secret plan to force Dr. Rudy Graveline to confess in front of the television camera. It was the most ludicrous scheme that Willie had ever heard, the sort of thing he'd love to watch, not shoot.
After a decent interval, Willie put his rum drink on the table and said: “Who's blocking out the interview?”
“Me.”
“The questions, too?”
Reynaldo Flemm reddened.
Willie said, “Shouldn't we run this puppy by the lawyers? I think we got serious trespass problems.”
“Ha,” Reynaldo scoffed.
Sure, Willie thought sourly, go ahead and laugh. I'm the one who always gets tossed in the squad car. I'm the one gets blamed when the cops bang up the camera.
Reynaldo Flemm said, “Let me worry about the legalities, Willie. The question is: Can you do it?”
“Sure, I can do it.”
“You won't need extra lights?”
Willie shook his head. “Plenty of light,” he said. “Getting the sound is where I see the problem.”
“I was wondering about that, too. I can't very well wear the wireless.”
Willie chuckled in agreement. “No, not hardly.”
Reynaldo said, “You'll think of something, you always do. Actually, I prefer the handheld.”
“I know,” Willie said. Reynaldo disliked the tiny cordless clip-on microphones; he favored the old baton-style mikes that you held in your handâthe kind you could thrust in some crooked politician's face and make him pee his pants. Christina Marks called it Reynaldo's “phallic attachment.” She postulated that, in Reynaldo's mind, the microphone had become a substitute for his penis.
As Willie recalled, Reynaldo didn't think much of Christina's theory.
He said to Willie: “This'll be hairy, but we've done it before. We're a good team.”
“Yeah,” said Willie, halfheartedly draining his glass. Some team. The basic plan never changed: Get Reynaldo beat up.
Now remember,
he used to tell Willie,
we got to live up to the name of the show. Stick it right in his motherloving face, really piss him off.
Willie had it down to an art: He'd poke the TV camera directly at the subject's nose, the guy would push the camera away and tear off in a fury after Reynaldo Flemm.
Now remember,
Reynaldo would coach,
when he shoves you, jiggle the camera like you were really shaken up. Make the picture super jerky looking, the way they do on
60 Minutes. If by chance the interview subject lunged after Willie instead of Reynaldo, Willie had standing orders to halt taping, shield the camera and defend himselfâin that order. Invariably the person doing the pummeling got tired of banging his fists on a bulky, galvanized Sony and redirected his antagonism toward the arrogant puss of Reynaldo Flemm.
It's me they're tuning in to see,
Reynaldo would say,
I'm the talent here.
But if the beating became too severe or if Reynaldo got outnumbered, Willie's job then was to stow the camera (carefully) and start swinging away. Many times he had felt like a rodeo clown, diverting Reynaldo's enraged attackers until Reynaldo could escape, usually by locking himself in the camera van. The van was where, at Reynaldo's insistence, Christina Marks waited during ambush i nterviews. Reynaldo maintained that this was for her own safety, but in reality he worried that if something happened to her, it might end up on tape and steal his thunder.
Reflecting upon all this, Willie ordered another planter's punch. This time he asked the waitress for more dark rum on the top. He said to Reynaldo, “What makes you think this doctor guy'll break?”
“I've met him. He's weak.”