“Hey. Where you going? Would you like to see a little ham bone?” He pulled up his trench coat and began to slap his thighs rhythmically. He began to sing some lewd choruses of the song “Mama Don’t Allow,” offending people with every dirty stanza. He finally reached the chorus: “Mama don’t allow no Playboy reading in here/Mama don’t allow no Playboy reading in here/We don’t care what the Mama don’t allow we going to read our Playboy anyhow,” whereupon a few grim-faced feminists had stood all they were going to stand, and stormed out. A security guard finally came and told Brashford to leave. Brashford got up and tried to take a swing at the security guard, but the guard caught his arm, and brought it behind his back. The Mike Hammer hat fell to the floor. Somebody picked it up and followed the security guard and Brashford out of the theater. The people who had remained turned to Ball.
“This should be a night of victory, of triumph for me, but instead my heart is heavy. You all know how much I love Brashford. He befriended me after I wrote a long panegyric about him in the Downtown Mandarin in which I expressed my thanks to Brashford that the younger generation had such a fabulously endowed genius such as Jake to serve as our role model. That one play that he wrote, The Man Who Was an Enigma, though badly structured and containing some clumsy surrealistic passages and perhaps the most blatant example of author intrusion on record since the protagonist’s life pretty much paralleled that of Jake’s and in which the female characters are simply sexist and, well, I must have counted about forty mixed metaphors, served as a beacon for aspiring playwrights. But don’t be so hard on Brashford for his behavior tonight. Remember him at his best as well as at his worst. Remember the good times as well as the bad. And don’t be so hard on his generation. Those old men. All of their gods have failed, in a manner of speaking. As for what he said about me. Look, I’ve found that in this business people are going to say things and if I have raised antagonism, so be it, for that’s what one gets when one tells the truth as one sees it.” The two feminists who had wrongly attempted to censor his work cried even harder. They were embracing each other. From others came shouts of “hear, hear.” There were congratulations all around. People were commenting on his magnanimity as they exited from the theater. He decided to take a little stroll backstage to see if the actors and actresses had left. There was one woman left. She had played Cora Mae’s lawyer. She was undressing, and she had one foot up on a bench; she was removing her stockings and shoes.
“Oh, excuse me,” he said.
“Oh, that’s all right.” She began pulling a dress over her slip. He had a chance to examine her hips, which didn’t have any excess, and her legs — her beautiful legs. If she was a piano she’d probably be a Baldwin. A piano that his hands and fingers could, well, play beautiful music upon. She slipped into another dress. It was expensive and showed good taste. She turned to him and smiled when she saw him standing there, fascinated. They let their eyes do all of the talking and maybe later other parts of their anatomy would be communicating, that is, if he was lucky. The gin made him feel lucky. She finally said, “Aren’t you going to the party?” The way she said it gave him a hard-on.
“I don’t feel like partying. Just maybe going home and sacking out. Why don’t you come over for a quick drink?” Sometimes they answer something that hurts your feelings, or they tell you that they had something else to do, but this was his night.
“Why not,” she said. She had eyes like Judy Collins.
He took her home and fucked her until she was sore. Gin always affected him that way.
21
Lieutenant Brown slammed on the brakes and the police cars came to a screeching halt. “Loathesome” jumped from the car and ran up to Becky’s apartment building. She was standing outside. She was in a white bathrobe and was wearing a towel about her head. She was still holding the gun. He took the gun from her and tried to talk to her and to calm her down.
“I think I hit him,” she said. She pointed in the direction of Fifth Avenue. “Loathesome” headed in that direction. He saw drops of blood traveling in the same direction. He reached Fifth Avenue and turned the corner. A man in a beret and coat was leaning against the wall of a building; he was holding his side. He seemed to be in agony. O’Reedy gave chase. The man ran about a block and turned into an alley. It was about 3:00 A.M. and nobody was on the street. Middle man, huh. Sean ought to see what I have to deal with. Creeps. Maniacs. Guys like this hair freak. I keep these freaks out of the public’s hair. And do I get thanks. No. My own son… He entered the dark alley. He slid against the wall, holding his gun. Nancy. Somebody hit him in the face. He felt something hard in his mouth. His teeth. His attacker wore a leather jacket, a leather beret, and a black mask. O’Reedy had the height and weight advantage over the man. He recovered in time to duck another blow. He licked some blood. The man was all over him, pummeling him. O’Reedy fell to the ground. All he could think of was that Tremonisha had gotten the Flower Phantom’s description wrong. He was shorter. O’Reedy was taking quite a beating and was about to pass out when he heard his gun fall to the pavement. He became alert. The Flower Phantom grabbed the gun. He stood over O’Reedy. The three Spanish guys were at his side. They were folding their arms. They had big smiles. They were wearing some suits that had broad pointy shoulders, and pants that draped about their ankles. One wore a hat with a wide brim. Another was sporting a goatee. They wore shirts with exaggerated collars. They weren’t wearing ties. The S.O.B.s weren’t wearing ties! They moved to see O’Reedy looking down the barrel of Nancy. The Flower Phantom pulled the trigger. It didn’t work. The Flower Phantom kept pulling the trigger; the same thing happened. In frustration, he threw the gun down. O’Reedy grabbed it and fired. The bullet missed the Flower Phantom’s head by about two inches. The Flower Phantom started to run toward the other end of the alley. But he didn’t get far. He was hit by a bullet that put a big hole in him, you could see through the hole to the wall across the street from the other entrance to the alley. He went up into the air and then slammed against the wall. O’Reedy could hear his ribs crack. He looked toward the direction of the gunfire. The jogger was standing — no, it was Lieutenant Brown. He was holding a shotgun.
“Everything okay, sir?”
22
He got up and went into the kitchen. The actress he’d brought home was still there. She was drinking some coffee. On the counter were two shopping bags with the name of the gourmet shop located around the corner from the hotel. Ball’s postcoital manners were bad. He’d like whoever he’d balled the night before to clear out before dawn.
She looked good and probably went through tormenting exercises to remain that way. She looked to be about thirty-five. All of that gin. Her box was snug and fit him tight, and he kept saying O Jesus, and he wasn’t even a religious man. She had sweet eyes set in a sweet face. She pushed a copy of Hurry, the weekly news magazine, across the table. He yawned. He looked at the picture on the cover. A man with long, black hair, the sort of forehead cut favored by writers Tom Wolfe and Frederick Douglass, and a frankfurter nose. He had a head like a California condor’s. He resembled a young Charles Laughton — a young Charles Laughton in drag. He was standing next to a camera. The story read; CEZANNE OF THE CINEMA, and underneath in small letters was his quote: “Wrong-Headed Man Made Me Weep.” She smiled as he looked over the cover.