Rad Rex stood up from the violet couch and went to the bar in the leather-walled living room to make himself a banana daiquiri.
He walked carefully, as if he were setting his feet down on two rows of uncooked eggs and trying not to crack them. The overall impression was one of a man who would be at home in ballet slippers.
He hurt, and it was his own fault. He had put on his dark mustache and dark wig to cover his strawberry-blond curly hair and had gone to a leather bar on the West Side last night and wound up doing a fist number for the rough trade, and he hurt. He would not do that again. This time he meant it. Suppose he had been recognized? Suppose he had wound up with his face smashed?
He put the drink's ingredients in the blender, carefully covered it so nothing would splatter on his green suede suit, then turned the switch. He held his hand on the blender as it whirred the drink to life. He giggled. It felt like a vibrator. He giggled again.
"Vibrators I have known and loved," he said to himself.
"How can one love a vibrator?" The voice was metallic and hollow and sounded to Rad Rex as if a wall were speaking to him. He spun around.
But the apartment was empty. He looked around carefully and felt gooseflesh grow on his shoulders and neck. Empty. But that had been a voice, dammit, a voice.
He swept his eyes around the living room again, then shrugged. It was getting to him. The pressure of these interminable negotiations over a new contract was just becoming too much.
Rad Rex poured his drink into a Waterford crystal goblet and took it back to the couch, holding the drink away from his side so the condensation didn't drip onto his suit. After the negotiations were over, he was going to take a vacation. That was all. He needed to get away. Two weeks would be nice. Maybe Sausalito. Or Puerto Vallarte. Anyplace where people didn't watch television.
Anyplace where he could be free to be he. Where he could be free to be feeing-and-feeing.
He giggled again, then stopped, sipped from his daiquiri and spilled a large mouthful all over his green suede trousers when the hollow voice came again: "You have telephone messages."
The voice was very close this time and it was metallic. He did not turn around. If the owner of the voice looked like the voice sounded, he did not want to see him.
"Who's there?" he said, staring resolutely at his bar, hoping to catch a glimpse of something in the polished stainless steel door of the refrigerator cabinet, as if a reflection would not be as dangerous to him as an eyes-on view.
"Get your telephone messages," the voice answered.
The telephone was at Rad Rex's right hand. He carefully placed his drink down atop a thin marble coaster on the glass and driftwood table, then pressed the button for the recorder attached to his telephone. As he always did when nervous, he twirled they key he wore on a chain on the left side of his trousers.
The tape whirred, gabbling excitedly backwards, and then the gabbling stopped and he knew he had reached the end of the message. He pressed the talk button and turned up the volume. He stared in the refrigerator door again but saw nothing. He picked up his glass again and sank back into the couch. The velvet cushions were soft, and they enveloped his shoulders like a lover. It was one of the reasons he had designed the couch just that way. To soothe. To relax. For a moment he forgot the voice he thought he had heard.
"Listen to your messages," came the voice again and Rex felt the gooseflesh on his neck and sat up straight. Dammit, this was absurd. He would turn around and see who was talking to him. Imagine, talking to someone in your own living room-and being, yes, afraid, to turn around and see who it was. He would turn around. Right now.
He did not turn around.
He sat there and felt the uncomfortable beads of sweat begin to form on his forehead.
The recorder spoke.
"Hiya, Rad, love. Eat anything good lately?"
It was that bitch again, that Wanda Reidel. If he hated anything in the world, it was nasty hard women who acted like men. This was the third call in as many days. Well, he would not call that woman. Agent problem or no agent problem, he simply would not have anything to do with that woman. Not ever.
"This is Wanda, precious one, and I've been trying to reach you for three days." The voice turned sad. "And you haven't called me. I'm beginning to think you don't love me anymore."
The voice paused as if awaiting an answer.
"Well, we'll let bygones be bygones," she said, "because I'm going to do something for you. I know you're having contract problems, Rad honey, and I'm in a position to help you."
Rad Rex sipped his drink. "Sure you are. Probably flat on your back under some network bigshot," he growled softly.
"Just listen," came the metallic voice from somewhere very close to his left ear. He listened.
"I've decided to offer you my services. This will help both of us. First, I'm moving into the New York television market. Second, with my contacts out here on the coast, your next stop is a starring role in films. Celluloid, honey. The real thing. Let's face it. You're too good to spend the rest of your life in a doctor's smock doing five-a-week soaps."
"Go fuck yourself," Rad Rex whispered softly. Not softly enough.
"I will not tell you again, schmuck. Just listen." The metallic voice again.
"Anyway, love, Rad darling, we can help each other. I move into the New York market. You get the best agent in the world and my guarantee, my personal, rock-hard… that's the way you like it, honey, isn't it-rock hard… guarantee that your next stop is a film. A budget biggie. No crap. What can those shlubs at Maurice Williams do for you like that? What have they done for you? Remember, sweets, they've got a lot of their people on contract with your network. You think they're going to rock the boat? Fight for you and hurt their other clients?"
The Octopussy had struck a nerve. It was probably true, Rad Rex thought. Probably true. Those bastards at the agency were selling him out, just to protect some nickel and dimers. Trade off old Rad Rex. Get him to work for spit and the network brass would wink and promise, without ever having to say a word, that they'd make it up to the agency with some of the other contracts coming up for renegotiation. Oh. those dirty bastards. It was true. Rad Rex knew it was true. If only Wanda Reidel weren't such a pushy bitch.
"Anyway, love, I'm sending my right-hand man, a Mr. Gordons, to come and see you. He'll have a contract with him. Sign it like a good boy, and then Wanda will have her crack at that network brass. But remember the big picture, Rad. The big picture. For you, it's Hollywood. Significance. Fame. Power. They're waiting for you, honey." She paused. "Kiss, kiss. And if it's really good looking, kiss it for me, too."
She laughed a braying laugh, and then the recorder clicked itself off.
"Cesspool cunt," said Rad Rex, finishing his drink.
"That is no way to speak about your benefactress."
Rad Rex still did not turn around. "Are you this Mr. Gordon?" he asked, carefully placing his empty goblet on the marble coaster.
"The name is Mr. Gordons. Yes, I am he."
Rad Rex turned around casually on the sofa, moving slowly, allowing himself to be able to recoil swiftly if he should have to.
The look of nervous apprehension on his face changed smoothly to a smile when he saw the man standing there. He was in his mid-thirties with light blond hair, carefully curled over his forehead in a Caesar cut. The man wore a tan suede jacket and dark brown linen slacks and open-toed sandals without socks. He was shirtless and his jacket was open, and on his bare chest he wore a huge silver pendant with an equal sign inscribed on it.
But what brought the smile was the man's key. He wore a plain gold key, hanging from a small chain that draped into his left front pocket and while many people wore many kinds of things nowadays which not did not really tell you a great deal about them, the key in the left pocket meant something very specific to Rad Rex. Mr. Gordons was a kindred spirit.