10
Okay, I admit it, I was in hog heaven at the capitalist trough, quaffing wine and spooning up a third helping of creme brulee. Crisis over, Flo was snickering, and the ring I’d butter-fingered off her was in my pocket. Incidentally, I still have it-did I mention that? The coppers released it to me after I got bail-I told them it was mine, to protect her.
Anyway, I figured if things went right, I could be Florenza’s kept lover, her toy boy, no more living in a beach shack on Garibaldi. Maybe she’d set me up in a penthouse over English Bay. You changed my life. Okay, your turn, you change mine.
Little did I know that this romantic comedy was about to morph into high tragedy. But I was deaf to inner whispers Flo was going to cut me loose after I provided fast, fast relief for needs that weren’t being met by the fuzz-nutted pucker-ass over there. He had nods and smiles for everyone but me, maybe because the last time he looked my way I was wiping globs of butter from my hand with a napkin.
Meantime, he was mewling over the important lesbian novelist, urging her to read from her new book. Not much opposition from her. She stood, smiled, said something self-deprecating, read a page or two about a woman on her fifth unhappy marriage.
I’d stopped drinking, mainly because my bladder had swelled to the size of Hudson Bay. I didn’t want anyone to see my pants were slimed with butter, so I waited till the moment was ripe, when everyone was applauding her, to slip away, grab my pack because I’ve got a change of jeans in there. I can’t find the nearest sandbox, though they’ve probably got a dozen of them, so I breeze outside and wee on the grass, the way you’d do at any function on Garibaldi.
I’m behind the Lamborghini, maybe getting a little spray on the back fender, and I don’t know what attracts the curiosity of its owner, maybe my groans of relief, but here he comes, the insufferable snob in the shiny shoes, just in time to catch me shaking off behind his priceless ragtop.
He stops like he just walked into a wall when he sees I’m not zipping up, I’m lowering my gaunches, my balls and pecker dangling. Slowly, very slowly, he starts backing away, pointing a remote control, setting the car alarm, I figured, because I hear a little bleep. He disappears, I pull on fresh jeans.
Back inside, everyone was shuffling around with coffees and cognacs, except for Flo and a couple of other smokers, who were out on the deck. Shiny Shoes couldn’t look me in the eye, and him and his wife left early. Last I saw of him he was checking to make sure I hadn’t jacked off all over his backup lights.
Whynet-Moir was trying to get the other lady writer to read, but she declined, and I’m feeling affronted that he doesn’t ask me. In case you didn’t know, that’s one of my fortes, doing readings; I get the crowd up at the coffee bars on Commercial Drive. Especially when I’ve had a few, like now.
I go out to the deck, bum one off Flo, a Gitanes, a prestige cigarette, I guess, but it smells like a burning tar pit. One of the tycoons and his spouse are out here too, him with a cigar. Mr. and Mrs. Bagley, he’s CEO of a frozen food conglomerate. “When do we get a chance to hear you read?” he asks.
Exactly my thought, but I’m demure. “Aw, I don’t know, it’s getting late.” I glance inside, and Whynet-Moir still has his back to me.
The spouse chimes in, “Oh, please, just one poem.”
Florenza looks at her watch, as if to affirm it’s getting late.
“We insist,” Bagley says, and he dinches his cigar and runs in to fetch Whynet-Moir. Mrs. Bagley goes off to get another drink.
The hostess pats my right buttock in a sort of proprietary way, like it’s something she owns and values. “The Bagleys will be the last to go, they tend to cling. I’ll have to start yawning.”
Then she pulls out my books again and asks if I know her well enough by now to sign them. I figured I had sufficient information on her, given I’d recently had my hand up her dress, but I didn’t have any bon mots quick at hand. She told me “Never Regret” was one of her favourite poems, so I wrote that. And for the other book, Karmageddon, she wanted a line from its title track. It goes, “New love blooms as the old lies dying.”
As I’m scribbling these out, she says, “How does a steam and a swim later sound?”
“Real sweet.”
“After I send Rafael to bed.”
“What if he doesn’t go to bed?”
“We’ll just have to find some way to get rid of him.”
And here he comes, sort of slithering out onto the deck, a look of embarrassed relief. “Ah, here you are, Cudworth. I’d rather lost you, I thought you might have found our little event too staid and fled. But then I remembered with relief we’re putting you up. Has he seen his room, dear?”
“Not yet, darling.”
Whynet-Moir was smiling, but it wasn’t real genuine. He must have suspected what’s up, it’s probably happened lots of times before. “A great hue and cry has gone up for you to read from Karmageddon. I beg you, please, grace us with a few lines.”
I shrugged. “Okay, what the heck.”
I followed him in, rummaging through my head for something raw enough to get the clinging Bagleys out the door.
I was also thinking about what Flo had said, it was causing me the willies. We’ll just have to find some way to get rid of him. The way she said that, not tossed off but in a low, intimate voice. I wasn’t totally hammered yet, but my defences were down. What a lamb in the woods I was.
It was after seven, nearly Hitchins time, as Brian slipped from the Ritz into the tinselled, foggy city, into the shimmer of storefront lights. He moved quickly, furtively, to Quick Loans, No References Required, the windows barred and dark. Its proprietor, a grizzled Iranian with a loaded.45 under the counter, was honouring the Lord Jesus, despite being Muslim, by not extorting repayments from the poor on Christmas Day. Soon Mr. Kharmazi might become more than a nodding acquaintance, given Brian’s dire financial straits. Harry the Need has also taken Christmas off-Brian didn’t blame him, but he’s had to cut back, only a half gram left for the next emergency. Right now he was strung out like a taut clothesline, paranoid without that compensating muscular high. Possibly delusional, but there was no scientific way of testing that.
He didn’t want to be too twisted tonight: Abigail Hitchins is a shifty stickhandler, she wants favours from him, admissions; he must not be tricked into signing away the family farm. What was on her wish list? His head maybe, to be mounted on her wall. She had detested the role she’d played in those distant times, mistress to an equivocating married man. How voracious she’d been in bed, selfish, demanding. Wanting to be on top. That’s how she will prosecute, the dominatrix.
A cruiser went by, slowing as it passed Brian, getting a fix on him. Brian tightened his grip on his attache case, headed to the corner, past the mime, who began following him, impersonating his long, hurried strides. The busker with the bongos commanded the next corner, and who knew what his game was. He had a big ugly dog. Brian was afraid of dogs. But Lance Valentine was with him, confident, in control. It’s only a busker and his mutt, old boy.
Jaywalking Main, he encountered a seedy group outside the Palace-two dancers, two customers, the doorman, a smoke break between sets, between Candy Floss and Cherry Blossom, tonight’s star grinders. He steered a course right at them, like he owned the street. The doorman smiled and said, “Merry Christmas, sir!” He respected Valentine, understood class.
He made it to the corner, looked behind. The mime had melted into the gloom, You foiled him, old fellow. Just to make sure, he slipped into the Eternal Happiness Cafe, went out the back way after buying a pack of A’s.