As Paddle 188 coolly appraised a crystal urn, Chuck went for his wallet and discovered it wasn’t there.
“Oh my God!” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Even as he crouched and searched his row, even as he started back for the deli, where his mind’s eye placed his wallet on the smeared Formica, Chuck knew that Maria didn’t have a daughter.
13
He begged them. They wouldn’t fork over the clowns.
“But you have all my information already, from when I registered online,” he said. “This is for a dear friend who’s very ill. We don’t even know how long he has.”
They had no proof that Chuck was Chuck, they said. A nice security guard took pity, gave him forty dollars, and called him a cab. Chuck clammed up about how a couple of sawbucks wouldn’t get him back to Burbank. He had the idea of crashing at Maria’s instead.
He stood there waiting for the cab as the day gave way to brisk evening. The last stragglers emerged from the building, a large group all together. “Congratulations! You got some nice stuff,” said a sassy, upscale person dressed all in white, with spiky platinum hair. Her friends probably called her “a little bundle of dynamite.” She made him feel better with her electrically crackling eyes.
“I got some porcelain clown figurines!” he shouted. She and her friends were crossing the street and she looked back at Chuck with a puzzled expression. Then her crowd caught her up and they disappeared brightly down the block like the merry dead.
He turned to see Paddle 188 climbing into his cab, Chuck’s cab, and shooting off down Bedford.
He was amazed when he turned to find that the windows of the auction house had been covered in brown paper, like a shameful package. It had been accomplished swiftly and silently, with marvelous efficiency. He found a side door and walked in.
“We’re locking up,” said the nice security guard who had helped him.
“I want everybody to know this is for Donny Billings,” Chuck said.
There was a tasteful, narrow china closet with a flimsy-looking doorframe that housed a pointy trophy and some others. Chuck put his fist through the glass. Blood spurted wildly from his knuckles and wrist, splashed on the gold plate and the frosty Lalique.
Donny was going to love this.
Chuck held the three sharp prongs of the Las Vegas Entertainment Award in front of him like a dagger. Was it a crown or a jester’s hat? Chuck made for the Neiman, right for its offensive mouth. He was going to wipe the smile off of Bob Hope’s face.
They tackled him and zapped him before the damage was done. He felt the weight of a thousand bricks on his chest. He vomited up black stuff from his heart. It came out of his nose. His eyes rolled backward in his head forever.
He did not see his two dead wives making out with each other in Heaven, Bob Hope standing behind them, golf club slung scarecrow-style over his shoulders, winking in beatific lewdness.
He saw instead a montage of himself at liquor parties at which he had arrived with an empty stomach. He saw himself interrupting everybody and talking too loud and bragging about a famous punk rocker he knew. This was his life, the one that flashed. He saw himself with his greedy fist around a black plastic fork, cramming an entire serving of macaroni and cheese into his mouth at once. Decent people watched and could not believe their eyes.
Frosting Mother’s Hair
TOM AND HIS MOTHER, MRS. WELLINGHAM, WERE PRACTICALLY THE same age. At fifteen, Mrs. Wellingham had married a twenty-year-old man — Tom’s father — who was leaving to fight in a war.
Tom had grown up and gone off and become pretty wealthy in the soft drink business. These days he lived in a kind of semi-retirement. What he did, mainly, was fly around to different corporate retreats and present a lecture he had come up with called “Stop Having Fun in the Workplace.”
Business had brought him back to his hometown after a long time away. Of course he went to visit his parents. Tom sat in a small living-room chair that seemed to have been crafted for a toddler. He wore one of his suits. He had just returned from lecturing a whole auditorium.
“What was the story about the root beer?” said Mrs. Wellingham.
“Which one?” said Tom.
“I think it’s a wonderful story. I’m going to see some of the old gang soon and I want to tell them. Anne Marie is always asking about your work.”
“I’m sorry. What story do you mean?”
“You said they really don’t taste different, your brand and the other. I can’t believe it.”
“Well, now, that’s true. It certainly is. It’s quite a story, how that information came about.”
“I have to get to the drag strip,” said Tom’s father, Mr. Wellingham Sr. He rose. Tom followed suit.
“Your father keeps strange hours these days,” said Mrs. Wellingham.
“That’s okay,” said Tom. “I understand working for a living and pursuing what one loves.”
Mr. Wellingham Sr. had finally sold the machine shop that had given him so much heartache over the years. Now he was a private consultant for a wealthy car collector. His job, as far as Tom could understand it, was making sure that suppliers of vintage car parts did not rip off his employer. And sometimes he lifted the hood of something and got his hands dirty for fun. He even drove a race-car as a hobby, despite his age. He won a lot of side bets from the smart young punks who thought they could take him. He and Mrs. Wellingham looked a lot happier these days, Tom thought.
“I need to fetch something,” Mrs. Wellingham said. “I think it’s going to be a delightful surprise. Now you two hug goodbye.”
When she left the room, Tom and Mr. Wellingham Sr. stood there looking at one another.
“Your lady friend couldn’t make it again, I see,” said Mr. Wellingham Sr.
“Sam? Well, no. She bought two enormous stones and she’s having them erected in the yard.”
“Please don’t tell your mother that. It would really hurt her feelings.”
“I can’t imagine why,” said Tom.
But Mr. Wellingham Sr. was on to something. Sam was the main reason Tom hadn’t seen his parents in two years. There was always something going on — her movies, for example, and big projects like her stones.
Sam couldn’t understand why Tom would want to talk to his parents. She stood close by and mimicked him during his phone calls home. It was what made her special. She was only twenty-six. You never knew what she would do next. In a sense, though, she was probably jealous and acting out. Tom bought his parents nice things, such as the house they were living in now. They didn’t want anything too roomy. They were alone.
Tom and his father said their goodbyes. Tom was still standing when his mother returned. She didn’t sit down, so neither did he.
“Finish your story,” she said. “I’ve promised lots of proud mother stories for my get-together.”
“Oh, the taste test. Well, that was a long time ago. I’m not sure how interested your friends will be. They took us upstairs and blindfolded us for a lark. We had to admit that we couldn’t discern our own product. There is actually more variation in separate batches of Mugsy than there is in the average batch of Mugsy versus the average batch of King Kevin.”
“I just don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Wellingham.
“It’s absolutely true, though our advertisements at the time stated the contrary. There is technically no difference in flavor between a bottle of Mugsy and a bottle of King Kevin.”
“I still like Mugsy best, because that’s your brand.”
“It was,” said Tom.
“And it really does taste better. You have too much faith in science and testing.”
“Science is pretty reliable,” said Tom.