"The group broke up," Azarian said. "As a group we no longer exist. We officially broke up."
"Who's the nice lady?"
"Security," he said. "Her name's Epiphany Powell. Maybe you've heard of her. She used to sing, she used to model, she used to act. Now she's doing security. The group broke up. We no longer exist as a group. Of course there wasn't any real hope once you left. Still and all it's frightening. Nobody was really prepared for it. But it happened. We no longer exist in the old sense."
"As of when?"
"I heard it on the radio coming in from the airport. When I left L.A., things were still in flux. Nothing was decided to the point where we could come out and say we've reached a decision. But I guess we broke up because I heard it on the radio. It sounded pretty official. Who has final word in these matters?"
"The radio," I said.
"A lot of it was my doing," he said. "I got heavily involved in black music. Not performing or producing. Just listening. That old showcase stuff with everybody in shiny clothes and pomaded hair. Brushed drums, piano, sax breaks. 'Baby don't you know that I love you so.' I'm into that sound, Bucky, and I can't get out. After all these years I realize that's the only sound I really love. So I neglected the band and now we no longer exist as a group. The little dance routines they do. Hands flashing out, feet gliding, bodies whirling so smoothly. Romantic soul music done by immortal groups. The Infatuations. The Tailfins. The Splendifics. 'It's a hurtin' pain you give me, babe, but I'm fightin' for my love.' It's all love and sorrow, Bucky, and it just about destroys me emotionally. The crude dumb emotion, it's so incredibly beautiful. Sorrowful ballads with occasional falsetto passages. And even when I'm just listening to records I can see them moving on stage, doing the little whirls and gliding steps, flashing out their hands. Shiny bright hair. Custom tuxedos. Fantastic teeth and fingernails. And the cheap emotion behind the lyrics just wrecks me. The Motelles. The Vanities. The Willows. The Renditions. The Flairs. Nate Pearce and the Hydromatics. 'Baby can't you see how you're upsettin' me, shoo-eee, shoo-eee.' Everything is there, Bucky. There's nothing else I want or need."
"Where's Globke? Have any idea?"
"We haven't been in touch at all. Globke? Not at all."
"Where's Hanes?" I said.
"I never talk to Hanes. Globke's office boy? I never talk to him."
"I'm almost ready to make a move. But I need a certain item."
"Bucky, the people I front for are a business-oriented group. They know how to handle the item in question. They're not a bunch of knife-wielding dope fiends. They don't stockpile explosives. They're a force in the community. They're known on the street and they're known in the smoke-filled rooms and the corner offices."
"But are they known in the ladies' lounge? Are they known in the organ lofts and the prehistoric caves?"
"You said you're ready to make a move. Move into what?"
"The claustrophobia of vast spaces. Noise, echoes, noise. Not knowing which is which. People flaming out in the four-dollar seats."
"Are you afraid?"
"It's the only thing to do," I said. "Absolutely necessary to make the move. I'm betraying an idea I only half understand. But it's necessary. I'm betraying this room and these objects. But it has to be done. In that sense I'm afraid. I feel immense and heavy. I feel as though I'm being towed out of a hangar."
"There's nothing more frightening than the immensity and weight of blackness," Azarian said. "It's just so incredibly heavy. Getting into it is like sinking into tons of funky cement in order to arrive at some historical point where you can see who you are and who they are and how you've been historicized by the journey. Blackness has a hard firm smell all its own. It's like walking into a room in one of the Arab nations and all these guys in burnooses and sandals are standing around in the dimness and they're all smoking hashish and saying things you don't understand and everything smells of hash and unfamiliar feet and the tremendous intense weight of strange centuries. Centuries we never experienced. I don't know how I can make you feel the weight and heaviness. The smell that's both metallic and organic. The slowness of everything. The indifference of the black experience to the person who's trying to seek it out. It's the weightiest of all trips. I guarantee you. It's intense beyond belief. It's harder than the hardest drugs."
"The product isn't here. I don't know where it is. Happy Valley doesn't know where it is either. There's no business to be done."
"They'll give you first of all a bonus. Second a percentage. Third the option to invest You get the bonus no matter how marketable the product turns out to be. They're putting pressure on me, Bucky. I'd like to resolve this thing."
When I woke up, Azarian was at the window looking out at the snow. I had no idea how long I'd slept. There were noises on the street, men unloading a truck. The woman leaned against the door frame, coat opened. I sat up in bed and stared at her, knowing it wasn't Azar-ian's security she was responsible for, nor mine. It seemed she was part of the pressure they were putting on him. Hair worn short. Caved face. Slender imperial neck. Hurdler's fused body. All in all a well-crafted piece of smoked glass and chrome. Azarian opened the window, scooped some snow off the ledge and tasted it.
"Needs seasoning," he said. "Want a bite?"
"Close the window."
"Epiphany used to sing in supper clubs, according to the data on her. Did I tell you that? Supper clubs. I didn't know places like that existed anymore. Must have been a weird scene. She acted in exploitation movies for six or seven months. A real pro-fessional. She did some modeling here and there. It's been a hard road. All that pro-fessionalism. It does things to people. Makes them hard."
"It don't faze Piffany," she said. "Nothing faze Tiffany."
Azarian looked at her a while longer, then turned to me.
"So nobody knows where the product is."
"True."
"Including the people who were holding it."
"True again."
"I believe you, Bucky. You wouldn't mislead me in a situation like this. At least I can report back with a definite answer. No more skip-this and wait-on-that. I was tired of the whole thing. No more now."
"Are you afraid?" I said.
"Of everything. More than ever. Constantly."
Into boiling water I dropped the plastic pouch lumpy with beef chunks and frozen noodles. I watched it slide down the side of the pot as the water stilled for a moment before resuming its furor. There was no clock that worked, no way to measure the fourteen minutes deemed necessary for thawing and the regeneration of flavor. I counted to sixty a total of seven times, then multiplied by two and removed the pouch, cutting it open with a pair of rusty blunt grooming scissors found protruding from a beer can, one blade in each triangular incision. I waited for the long-dormant odor of goulash to be broadcast to my nose, smoke of herdsman's meat, but the air held little more than a limp whiff of carrots. I plopped contents into cornflake bowl and set to eating, eyes off the food, teeth working mechanically. I tried in fact to close off all my senses to this dim experience. Abused longhorns stuffed in pouches. Ceremonial flesh injected with cursed preservatives. Eating myself: lessons in the effects of auto-cannibalism. I tried to erase taste-memory from my lips with a two-ply paper towel, floral bordered. Then I got up and answered the telephone, chilled by the feel of the earpiece.