Rad Rex stood up and smiled, trying to dazzle Mr. Gordons with his display of orthodontia. Yes, Mr. Gordons was a good-looking young man. And he looked soft. It might be nice.
"Can I offer you a drink?"
"I do not drink," said Mr. Gordons. He did not smile back. "I have brought a contract from Wanda."
He held up a sheaf of papers in his right hand. Rex put up a hand in dismissal. "Plenty of time to talk about that later, love. You don't mind if I have one, do you?"
"Your drinking habits are no concern of mine."
Oh God, it was eerie how the voice was clipped and precise and almost sounded as if it came from a robot. "I have come to have you sign this contract."
Ead Rex smiled to himself. He was not going to be pushed into signing any contract. The last time he had been pushed into anything was a few years earlier when a gang "of Mafia goons had shown up at his studio and caused labor trouble and raised hell and finally forced Rad Rex to write a message on a picture of himself that was going to a fan. At the time it had been frightening. Later it became silly. The Mafia? For an autographed picture? Ridiculous. But at the time, Rex was scared.
He was younger then. He would not be pushed anymore. Not by the network, not by Wanda Reidel, not by this Mr. Gordons, no matter how cute he was.
Rex pushed the ingredients into his blender and made another daiquiri. He turned again to face Mr. Gordons, leaning back against the bar on his left elbow, legs crossed at the ankles, holding his glass in his right hand, away from the suit, eyelids set at sleepy half-mast, faint smile on his lips.
"I hope drinking is the only vice you don't have," he said softly.
"All right, fag," said Mr. Gordons. "My tolerance with you is about to end. You may finish consuming your drink and then you will sign this contract."
"Hold on, fella," said Rex. Not fag. He wasn't going to be called that. Not in his own apartment. "You don't have to be here you know. I'll throw you out on your sweet little heinie." He pointed to the wall behind Mr. Gordons from which hung a karate gi and an assortment of yawara sticks, Oriental hand-fighting implements. "Those are mine, pal. I'm a black belt so just watch it, or you'll be out on your duff."
"I will be no such thing. You will sign this contract."
"Fuck off," said Rad Rex. Forget him. Mr. Gordons' key was a fake. He was a fake, working for a fake, and Rex was not going to bother with fakes. He carefully unarranged his legs, turned from Mr. Gordons and sat on a stool at the bar. He set his glass down on the wooden bar top. He looked at his face in the refrigerator door. He saw Mr. Gordons move slowly and silently alongside him.
Let him. Rad Rex would not turn around. He would not dignify this imposter twerp by arguing with him. Let him go back to Hollywood and sink a pork injection into that disgusting Octopussy that he worked for. Let him argue. Let him plead. Rad Rex was immovable, as unchanging as the very gods.
Mr. Gordons did not try to argue with Rad Rex. He reached his hand in front of the actor and encircled the Waterford goblet. Rex watched the delicate, almost hairless hand settle around the glass. Good. Maybe he was going to loosen up. He turned to look at Mr. Gordons, a small flicker of good-natured hope at the corners of his mouth. Mr. Gordons was not smiling and not looking at him. He was looking at his own right hand on the goblet.
Crack! The sound startled Rex. He looked back at Mr. Gordons' hand. The glass had been crushed. The yellow goop of the daiquiri puddled on the bar top.
Chunks of expensive crystal sat in the spilled drink, like miniature icebergs in a thick yellow sea.
Mr. Gordons still had much of the glass in his. hand. Rex watched, fascinated, as Gordons continued to squeeze. He could hear the big glass chips cracking into smaller glass chips. God. That was it. The man was a pain freak. A blood nut. His hand must be like hamburger now. The breaking crystal sounded like the tinkle of very small bells very far away.
Mr. Gordons opened his hand slowly. The expensive Irish crystal was now reduced to a dull white powder, uniform and small, almost like table salt. Gordons dropped the powder onto the bar. Rex looked in astonishment. Mr. Gordons' hand was unmarked. Not a cut. Not a scratch. Not a drop of blood.
He looked at Gordons. Gordons looked at him.
"I can do the same thing to your skull, fag. Now sign the contract."
Rex looked at the pile of crystal dust on the bar. He looked at the unmarked palm of Mr. Gordons' right hand and he reached over the bar for a pen and began to sign the three copies of the contract without even reading them.
Wetness collected along his lower back near the base of his spine. He could not remember the last time he had felt that unpleasant moisture.
Yes, he could. It was that day years before with those Mafia goons who wanted that picture autographed. What was it he had written that day? An autographed picture to a special fan.
He remembered the inscription because he had done it twice before he had gotten it right.
"Chiun. To the wisest, most wonderful, kindhearted, humble, sensitive gift of man. Undying respect. Rad Rex."
Strange he should think of that now.
CHAPTER NINE
Gerald O'Laughlin Flinn signaled the waiter for another round of Bloody Marys.
"Not me, dearest," said Wanda Reidel. "One's my limit when I'm working."
Flinn flashed her a smile so bright it looked as if his teeth had been painted with refrigerator enamel. "Oh," he said casually, "you're working today? And I thought this was just a social call."
Wanda Eeidel smiled back, a smile as warm as a codfish's skin,
"And you're as full of shit as a Christmas goose," she said, still smiling and using the tine of her appetizer fork to pluck a piece of Alaskan king crab from between two right front teeth. "When an agent like me and the number one negotiations honcho for a big network like you get together, it's always business."
The waiter with the name tag "Ernesto" returned with the two drinks. Flinn took them from the tray and put them both in front of his own plate.
"Would you like anything, dear?" he asked Wanda.
She looked up at the waiter, a young, well-groomed vaguely foreign man with dark wavy hair and skin with a faint olive tinge.
"There are a lot of things I'd like," she said, her eyes fixed on the young waiter's, "but they'll have to wait." The waiter smiled and nodded. He turned away.
"Just a minute," she said. He turned back.
"I'll have a dish of ice cream. What kind of ice cream do you have?"
"What kind would Mademoiselle desire?" the young man asked in flavored English.
"Mademoiselle, God, Mademoiselle would like rum raisin." She turned to Flinn. "Do you know I haven't had rum raisin ice cream in twenty years? Do you know I'd do anything for a dish of rum raisin ?" Back to the waiter. "Anything. I don't suppose you have rum raisin."
"We will locate some for Mademoiselle," the young waiter said and moved smoothly away into the kitchen where he said to the maitre'd in a voice that was all Bronx: "You sure that bitch is worth all this trouble?"
"That bitch can buy and sell you and seven generations of your family, Ernie," said the maitre'd.
"Then I gotta go over to Baskin-Robbins and find some rum raisin ice cream. She wants rum raisin ice cream, for Christ's sake. Nobody eats rum raisin ice cream. What's wrong with that tub of shit?"
"If she wants rum raisin, you find rum raisin," said the maitre'd.
As Ernie went to the door, the maitre'd called, "If Baskin-Robbins doesn't have it, find the nearest Howard Johnsons. Hurry up. Take a cab if you have to. And while you're looking, I'll mix some up."