The blonde on the bed said: I charge the same for spectators as for participants, ’cause that’s all it takes for them to get off.

I can get a hint, said Brady.

Oh, it’s not a hint, the blonde said. I don’t give a fuck if you stay. You just have to pay me, is all.

That’s exactly why he’s not going to stay, Tyler explained.

I’ll be at the bar across the street, said Brady. Try to not take as long as you did last night. This is getting really old.

My heart bleeds, laughed Tyler. Of course, it always bleeds around now. It’s that time of the month.

Are you a misogynist? said the blonde.

What do you mean?

Do you have it in for women just because they menstruate and you don’t?

I’m going now, said Brady.

I said, do you hate women? the blonde went on.

Have a beer, sweetheart, said Tyler in disgust. The things I put up with.

The door closed behind Brady. Tyler continued to sit on the edge of the bed for a moment, listening to his footsteps fade down the hall. He heard a door open and a woman begin yelling in Chinese. Then that door closed, too, and he heard Brady’s footsteps a little longer. When they had entirely died away, Tyler sighed and put his legs up. He did not bother to remove his shoes.

I’d prefer a wine cooler instead of a beer, the blonde said. I see you have plenty.

Help yourself, doll.

I’m not a doll. I’m a human being, and my name’s Domino.

Pleased to know you, he said. My name’s Henry.

I used to date a guy named Henry once. He was a real asshole.

It goes with the name.

Whatever. Are you going to get undressed or not?

I am undressed. Do you see me wearing a necktie? My brother wears neckties. He works downtown.

Look. I’ve got other dates to take care of, so can’t we please move things along? Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.

Tyler untabbed his beer and burped. The hard grey beetle-shell of his face seemed to express embitterment, but it was only tension. His narrowed eyes guarded his soul by occluding and devaluing it. Tonight he was vulgarizing himself still further to play some conception of an appropriate part, perfectly aware of his inconsequentiality to the blonde but habit-driven to conform and mimic, just as when, spying on some potentially unfaithful banker in the financial district, he’d wear his old London fog and stand with the suspect’s photograph hidden inside the latest Wall Street Journal. And tonight he was a nasty old whoredog. — Let’s see what you look like naked, he said.

Then she took her dress off, presenting to his secret-loving eyes belly-wrinkles like sandbars, and she took her bra off to let him see her round breasts bulging with silicone, and for him she took off her panties to give to his view her crusty blackish-reddish crotch. Lying on the bed long-legged with her red shoes on, she let him finger-trace the highway of a motorcycle wound, the white island of a bullet wound pigmented with granules or black hairs. Then the pipe’s orange reflection glowed on her cheek as she squatted, inhaled, took the pipe out, kissed him, exhaled her smoke into his mouth: taste of bubblegum breath, her tongue in his mouth, then the numbness and heartracing happiness.

Thank you, he said. That was good of you. (When he said it he meant it. But after all, he thought a moment later, it isn’t as though doing that cost her anything. Everybody has to breathe out.)

You want some gum? she said.

No, thanks.

Well, what do you want?

I was wondering if you knew the Queen of the Whores.

Hell, no, the blonde said.

She lit the pipe again and got on all fours to blow her drugbreath into his mouth, looking very pretty with her buttocks high. Probably she meant to outshine his glimmer of unreadiness, since quick beginnings help make quick endings. She had things to do. He put an arm around her, pulling her toward him as he returned her kiss. Without knowing why, he’d begun to like her, drawn perhaps to the quickwitted, sarcastic rudeness and desperation of her. But business barred him from showing it. Brady wouldn’t have cared if he laid her, but sexually she did not speak to him because he was in love with another woman whom he was not supposed to think of in that way and therefore perpetually did, now imagining the blonde to be her so that the blonde saw his hard face soften and his eyes dreamily open into nothingness as she pressed her mouth tighter against his, believing then, not unreasonably, herself to be the cause. Domino liked the world to think well of her. Gesturing, her arm incredibly jointed yet smooth like her breast, smooth and multi-lit like a wax pear in rainbow light (he knew perfectly well that it was the crack that so pleasantly exaggerated things), she lay on her side, caressing the mattress while her folded shoulder-shadows flickered.

Well, said jocular Tyler, if you did know, who would she be?

She might be me! laughed the whore, throwing herself onto her back with disconcerting suddenness. Then she took his hand and funnelled it down into her crotch.

That’s true, he said, pretending to consider. Why, she might even be me, or Mr. Brady.

That your friend? He sure looked like a loser.

He is a loser. But he pays me.

You gonna pay me?

Yep.

You’d better pay me. I don’t take to being gaffled.*

Now honestly, said Tyler. Do I look like the gaffling type?

As soon as he’d breathed down the clean and bitter smoke well moistened by her lungs, his heart had begun to beat even faster, so that he felt as alertly alive as if he had been terribly afraid instead of being perfumed with delight.

Anyway, what do you want to find the Queen for? I couldn’t care less about that bitch. I don’t work for anyone but me.

I guess you and I are through then, he replied.

But we didn’t do anything! You still going to pay me?

Yeah, I’ll pay. And maybe sometime we’ll even do it. (Tyler said this to all the whores. He was very polite that way.)

You’d better pay me or I’ll get tough, said the blonde, not entirely able to eyelid her pleasure at winning something for not engaging in an act she usually hated (and Tyler, perceiving all this through his now renarrowed eyes, felt illogically, ridiculously hurt).

How can I get in touch with you? he said.

That’s easy, honey. I’m at the El Dorado on Sutter between Taylor and Jones. Sometimes I change my room, but wherever I am, I always face the street, get it? Just stand under the windows and whistle four times. Or if you’re in a car, honk four times. Do you have a car?

The loser does.

He does? What kind?

Here’s fifty bucks, Domino. I guess I’ll be seeing you.

Lying naked on that bed, playing boredly with the gold chain that lay across her breasts, she waggled her ass, hoping to interest him so that maybe she could charge him more. But he’d gotten up and was looking out the window. She sighed and got dressed.

Don’t forget me, she said in a way that showed she’d already forgotten him.

He didn’t think he would. He thought he could remember the long white track, the eye-shaped bullet scar.

The hotel had improved since the Indians took over. It didn’t stink as much, and there was no litter on the floor. Behind the white curtains stained with round brown spots like old blood, the window (which he’d opened to let the staleness out) faced a gulley walled by bricks, kindred windows, and fire escapes. From down below shouts floated up like seagulls. The windowsill smelled like urine. Tyler leaned out and saw a black man who stood smoking a cigarette, the man’s hair very black and shiny against the dun evil of the alley. — This has gotta be my low point, he muttered. What a stupid job. — He waited until Domino emerged from the hotel. When she didn’t look up, he felt oddly disappointed. She’d barely sipped her wine cooler, so when she’d gone and the black man had sauntered away, he threw the bottle out the window and listened to it smash…

Any luck? said Brady, whose tone implied that Tyler would never own any of that commodity.

Of course she said she didn’t know anything.

Did she say that she knows the Queen?

No, she didn’t say exactly that.

Had a Pinkerton team work for me once, chuckled Brady, opening a bottle of pills. They told me they have a rule that you’re not supposed to get emotionally or sexually compromised. But I don’t give a shit.

Tyler was silent.

I said, I don’t give a shit what you do.

Let’s keep this professional, boss.

Did you ever get the impression that she was lying to you?

Why should she lie to me?

You care to answer my question?

She said that she doesn’t give a damn about the Queen. Usually when somebody goes to the trouble to say that, that means that she does give a damn. But if that’s a lie, it’s not a very important lie.

It’s not my policy to tell you what I do or do not consider important, said Brady.

Yeah, boss, I know it isn’t.

Brady took a dictaphone from his shirt pocket, pushed the button, and intoned into it: There were days and days of such false starts, but since this is one of those rare occasions when discretion actually serves the turn of narrative interest, I shall refrain from dragging those people and episodes into this.

That’s beautiful, boss. Are you what they call extemporaneous?

Nope. And a year from now my common stock is going to split two for one. You tag her?

Locator fluid under my thumbnail. She let me touch a scar on her leg. I worked it in good.

How good we’ll know in a minute. Anything else?

Said you were a loser.

I must be, to hire you. Well, show me.

It’s all wired up, said Tyler. Pinkerton guys were the only other private eyes you did anything with? Somehow I figured you worked in the security field. Guess I was wrong. Turn the TV to channel seven and then click the remote three times, like this. Uh huh. Now wait a minute. Okay. See that blue dot? That’s Blondie, and she’s staying on the grid. Going down Leavenworth — now see; she’s turning at Turk. Stopping for a minute, probably having a little chat with her dealer, but we’ll mark it… okay, now she’s coming up Jones; she’s just done three sides of a square; she’s back on her beat. And I’d guess she’s scratching her scar; that’s why the blue dot flickered there for a minute. I’d say she’s not going to lead us to any Queen. You never know, though. That’s the beauty of this job, Mr. Brady. This place she keeps going to is probably just a bar, but we’ll mark it, too. Computer says it’s a parking garage. Maybe she takes guys there to give head. Anyhow, it’s in the system. See her walking up and down the block? A slow night. But at least she got picked up by us losers.

Dark tracks of ecstasy down which slid blinking lights and fluffy lights, rays of warmness on cold tracks; these carried Tyler and Brady past brick hofbraus and pavement-holes. Ahead, a police car turned the corner. Pizza lights marked the edge. Then all the brightnesses started getting skinnier. White-lit arches launched them down long white slides tulipped with lamps, and they passed the Peacock Club, outside of which the first whore of the evening stood fussing with her science-fiction garter belt. Whores white and black swayed in the light. Their legs shook automatically. Tyler looked steadily out the passenger window, photographing that huddle of girls with his brother’s old Minox. Expense account stuff, so gaffle me, sister. He’d thought the camera was practically invisible, but clippety-clop: three whores were running away. — Such sweet scared little fishies! cried Brady. — Tyler cleared his throat, wondering whether he might be catching a cold. His brain ached. They oozed down Hyde Street, waiting to breast the current of lights whose source-spring was a single rectangle of yellow high up above the corner; then there were yellow market-lights, gold lights, apartment-lights and lady-lights issuing from a hotel awning and its grating, and sex-light coming from the girl against the wall. Lonely sparks and tangents strung on hills tried to siren them away from the square rectitudes of ordinary stores. Brady would not be distracted. He stopped at an arched brick building whose scaffolding mutated against its glass. There a fat lady hiked up her skirt and pretended to masturbate, staring straight into his eyes. Through the open window Tyler said: Can you take a message to the Queen? It involves money. — Don’t start shittin’ me, said the fat lady. I’m not datin’, so you can’t haul me in for datin.’ —We’re not cops, said Brady brightly, but the fat lady only said: Uh huh, and you really love me and you won’t come in my mouth and the check is in the mail. — Winging chevrons of gratings vanished her between vertical stripes of garage-light. Dauntless Brady swung the car back into the groove of traffic, undazzled by blinking lights on metal, dazed only by the other cuntsharks. Tyler smiled gently at the square buttocks of a van just ahead. For a moment he thought of Domino. Then the nauseating glitter on fences and gratings caught him. Breaking through a yellow lurch of hotel-lights, he saw a man checking his watch on the corner. Tyler knew that the man resembled him. The man was up to something. He winked at the man, who flinched, and then they were past. Above an awning like the roof of a mouth, a whore was smiling and bending from an orange-lit window. Tyler exposed two rapid frames (no flash, 6400 ASA) and noted the location.

Might as well roll down your window at every black girl you see, said Brady abruptly.

My window’s always down, boss. I don’t care how chilly it is. What makes you think she’s black?

Just a feeling. That’s how I imagine her. Tell me how you imagine her, and don’t you dare lie to me.

Oh, I guess I could see her as one of those solarized naked blondes in an old Man Ray print. You know, with those haunting eyes. Are you into photography?

Well, I hired a guy to wire up a women’s locker room once.

I collect books on photography, admitted Tyler with a certain shyness. Brady, who prided himself on knowing people, could tell right away that here lay his hireling’s monomania, on which, given any encouragement, he’d discourse with arid learnedness, like other people on hockey, stamp collecting, their pets or children. — I collect photographs, too, Tyler was saying. It sort of goes with my profession. On Sundays I sometimes like to play around, you know, do nudes, double triple quadruple exposures… There’s one. You want to pull in toward the curb, boss?

A black whore was rubbing legs at the light, crunching potato chips. She wore a silver paper skirt. Tyler mouthed the word “Queen” at her and she shrugged and waved. Brady shook his head.

Pasty-faced white girls at the corner of an alley grinned as if at a party. Tyler jumped out and asked them if they’d seen the Queen.

She never comes before ten o’clock, a girl said. Why, you got something for her? You can give it to me. Honey, you can give it to me.

Lights hurt the mirror of a parked truck.

Between two dead grey towers, a girl in a sweater swung her tits like a waitress in a truck stop slamming down a plate of fried eggs. She whipped her hands at them, glaring fiercely.

That’s quite a luxuriant nigger girl, his boss said.

You from the South, Mr. Brady?

Why, do I have an accent?

No, I just wondered.

Well, stop wondering and ask her the question. That’s what I’m paying you for.

Tyler crooked his finger, but the girl only spat loudly on the sidewalk.

The Queen wouldn’t like that sort of behavior, you know, he said to her.

What the fuck do you know about what the Queen likes? the whore shouted. You think you’re good enough to jump the Queen?

Why? said Tyler. Are you trying to tell me you’re a big enough bitch to eat the Queen’s pussy? Does she let you do it on alternate Tuesdays?

I oughta cut you, the whore said. She wore silver stockings that came all the way up to her buttocks. Peering sulkily, she bent and picked something up from the sidewalk.

Find out what she grabbed, whispered Brady.

What did your friend say? cried the whore suspiciously. She came over to the car. Seeing Brady’s dark suit and necktie, she smiled, softly offering her goosepimpled thighs. — You datin’? she said. I’d much rather go wiv you than him.

Yeah, he’s dating, said Tyler. He wants to do you and the Queen at the same time.

What do you keep talkin’ ’bout the the Queen for? It’s bad to talk about the Queen.

Another girl walked past, her garters glittering like frosting and mica against the scaly diamonds of gratings. Shivering, she shot a bitter look at Tyler and shouted: Am I your only secret slave? Am I the only one you’re getting paid to practice slavery on?

Get lost, said Brady.

Look, said Tyler to the suspicious whore. A hundred bucks if you take me to the Queen.

The whore whirled and clip-clopped away in the direction that the other girl had come.

You scared her, said Brady reproachfully.

Let’s follow along, boss. We might learn something.

That’s a spurious and specious linkage, said Brady.

What?

Your assumption that because I say the word nigger I must be from the South. You’re trying to stereotype me.

We’d better follow the girl, boss.

You tag her?

Yeah, with that dime store earring she grabbed. Soaked in locator fluid. I dropped it out the window when she was yelling at me.

I don’t trust that locator fluid. If it’s so good how come the FBI doesn’t use it?

I don’t know, boss. I never worked for them.

Because you’re a loser?

Uh huh.

Are you evading me?

What would I want to evade you for, boss?

Because you’re spending my money and wasting my time.

I could try and pull some old court records, Tyler muttered, ducking his head.

Well, maintain visual. An earring, huh? That was a good one. — Brady smiled, recollecting multitudes of other girls seduced by tented alleyways sheltering cases of earrings; they slowly bent their heads in submission to that glitter. He was rich. — Come on, come on, come on.

Sure, said Tyler. We’ll just keep rolling and rolling along.

They tracked the suspicious whore through a dozen neon spiderwebs to some kind of overcast garageworks behind a grating, red car-skulls watching from beyond. Tyler sat listening to the heavy clop of that glossy-shoed girl so sour-sweet with the sweat-drops glistening from her meaty shoulders as she ran through the cold night. She’d gotten inside the grating somehow (a fat van had blocked the view), and now she vanished among the red cars.

Okay, boss. We can’t go in there now; it’s too obvious. It’s the same place that Blondie went to last night. We’ll check it out tomorrow.

Was her name really Blondie?

She called herself Domino.

Then call her Domino. Are you a misogynist? sneered his boss with a grunting laugh.

A tall black girl crossed the street with mincing clicking steps, drinking from something in a paper bag. There were frothy things on her breasts like silver spit. Other women were already smiling over her shoulder.

Lest it be believed that only Tyler indulged in monomania, I may as well mention that Mr. Brady was a devotee of the cottonwood tree. — A cottonwood plank in a horse stable will outlast an oak plank two to one, he said.

Is that a fact, said Tyler, counting receipts.

I personally laminated cottonwood four-by-fours to show what they could do for high-grade railroad crossings, said Brady, who reminded him of a camel-necked tan goat without ears he’d once seen, gnawing sadly on the railing of its cage. — I talked to the engineers and they just loved that idea. But I couldn’t get anywhere with the purchasing department. Mr. Brady, they said to me, I’m just gonna have to be real blunt with you. Unless you’re willing to pay these purchasing agents something under the table, it’ll never happen.

Is that right, said Tyler. There was a whore he knew that he thought he could go halves with. She could spout nonsense about the Queen on Brady’s money and give him a kickback. He didn’t want this job to end yet. Brady must be rich rich rich. He belonged in the kind of hotel lobbies where patrons whisper instead of shout.

We ran an experiment where we were grinding those cottonwoods for cowfeed, said Brady, while Tyler was thinking: I really ought to check my answering machine. — How about that, he said.

And we had to fight every pharmaceutical company in the country. They wanted to pollute our meat with that teramyacin, that auromyacin. Those idiots at the college up there are the equivalent of the prostitute press. They went right along with the pharmaceutical companies. We couldn’t get it off the ground because of the money pressure out there.

Well, I’ll be, said Tyler. Are you sure they weren’t evading you? — Later he went to look for the whore he could have gone halves with, but she’d been arrested.

Is he your boyfriend or is he your boss? said the crazy whore, her eyes gleaming like the wristwatches of hopeful young lawyers.

My boss, said Tyler.

(The room smelled like mold.)

He reminds me of the guy who got shot ’cause he kept lookin’ at the robber’s face. I said to him, you just don’t know how to get robbed.

I can take a hint, said Brady, not getting up to go.

He reminds me of those big she-males in the street, the whore said.

Better be careful, said Tyler, guiding the conversation into interesting channels. Maybe the Queen’s listening.

I don’t care what she hears because very little of what she hears is real.

I can take a hint, Brady repeated, getting more comfortable. He obviously loved all this. Tyler didn’t. He might have, if he’d been working alone. But this was a waste of time.

I’m just a beginner compared to Sapphire, the woman said. I haven’t gone as deep as she did before she was even born.

Who’s Sapphire? said Tyler.

Don’t you even know that? She’s the Queen’s special darling. She can’t talk.

Well, you can sure talk up a storm, said Brady. Find me an ashtray, would you?

I don’t want you to talk, the whore went on. Maybe that one patheticism, what’s it going to accomplish? This place is very high-class, and you know what happened? I told myself, and I told myself, but the mirror fell off and broke. ’Cause I paid my rent check. I don’t need to pay it till tomorrow. Or is it not your day to be near me? Or am I whispering too much?

Oh, no, ma’am, not at all, said Brady. He winked at Tyler. — Transient psychotic symptoms. Good money there.

What the fuck are you talking about, boss? said Tyler.

The crazy whore frowned at Tyler and pointed at Brady. — His jollies would be bigger if he sat in the closet. Then he couldn’t see me but would just feel me being nude. I’m not saying you can’t get something out of me.

Want to try it, boss?

Sure. Is there a chair in that closet?

There’s a very tiny looking kid living upstairs, the crazy whore said. He’s a spy for the Queen. ’Cause maybe I’ll identify him to the point where I’ll be able to cup my buttocks properly. And then I’ll just make the bed. So what if he spies. So what if the Big Bitch is listening. You know what I’ve been waiting for? You know what I want to say to her? I want to tell her, I want you to do it to yourself, Big Bitch. I think that’ll just bring back the Golden Age. Byzantine. I remember how to hold off and how to gaffle. See how my fingers are naked? Poor me! Your friend has to understand, you know. The little kid can see right through the ceiling, ’cause he’s got good eyes. He doesn’t know if you guys are alive or dead, so I said dead.

Well, thanks, said Tyler agreeably. (Brady was snoring in the closet, with an unlit cigar in his hand.)

The crazy whore scratched and scratched. Possibly she had scabies.

So does the Big Bitch have a name?

A name is just something you use once for your job. Then you throw it in the trash, so vigs and pigs can’t get you. See what I mean? My name is just Pussy. But after I’m done, then my name is Tongue.

What you said just made me sad.

You see what I’m saying?

Yeah, I get it. But does she have a name?

Maj or midge, they’re all mosquitoes, just sucking blood and sperm for money. Maj is like majestic but she’s not Maj. She’s just the Big Bitch. And most of them are young girls. You might be shocked.

Oh, try me.

Naked, hard-nippled, with red lines across her belly, the crazy whore glided sleeves and panties across her hair. — My dollars’ worth of cunt is fifty dollars, she hissed. And my dollars’ worth of crack is fifty dollars. Then I’m too hypersexually active to care. I have the Mark. You don’t have the Mark yet, but you will. You know what the Mark is?

Nope.

It’s in the Enemy’s Book. First chapter. That’s not too much to read, but you’re just a little too much to be humble. Your normal visit’s just a normal visit, right?

That’s right, honey. Just a normal visit. Maybe my boss will jerk off in your face or something.

The crazy whore twisted and leaned against the moldy wall, and her rear stuck out.

Tyler pulled his best confiding face and whispered: I like it when you talk about the Queen.

And I like you to say what you said, she replied. ’Cause my pussy’s a nervous thing, like some kind of fungicide. And now we have to stick something up my pussy like a baby powder. Your body is prisonering me, Mister, like a car crashing into several people, like six at one time. But the Queen is the goddess of my vision. She’s full of compassion and envy. She’ll notice when you have something she doesn’t remember. ’Cause everything comes from her. She won’t leave anybody here. Little spy, you around me yet? I’m not concerned with that as much as with agreeing with beautiful colors. Or haven’t you noticed? I hate Sapphire. You know why? Her colors are more beautiful than mine. Sapphire’s perfect. She’s the Queen’s little pet. I want to kill Sapphire because I’m jealous, but I won’t. I want to kill you and take your money but I’m afraid. Now, all I have to do is kill a bug that’s this big. My spiders would incubate areas inside my artificial nerve. They lay their eggs in it, ’cause it’s plastic. Plastic is dead to hold my eyes into my head. But the Queen has living rotting eyes. Something about me will not let me see you. But this is going to be real. Really real, she wept, beginning to masturbate. — I’ve got good luck but you can’t come in. ’Cause I’m with my ex-husband. I think you can tell from your voice that I want to be with you again.

She pounced on Tyler and slammed her tongue into his mouth. He sighed and patted her naked ass, massaging in locator fluid with a half-life of three nights. She pulled away almost at once. She was licking her lips in the light of the crack pipe flame as she bounced on the bed, rubbing her clitoris. — Well, that pipe works pretty good, she said.

Tyler took one hit out of politeness, felt the good feeling, sighed, got up, and knocked on the closet door. — Huh? said Brady, awakening.

Let’s go, boss. I think we’re wasting time with this one. I gave her ten dollars.

The crazy whore wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. She was picking little wads of tissue out of her cunt.

After they left, though, she proceeded to the parking garage at a desperate run.

When Tyler, tuning in to channel seven, became apprised of this news, he raised his eyebrows and smiled at his boss. He didn’t even think any longer about the whore he could have gone halves with. He was getting interested in this project for his own sake. Truth to tell, in his sphere he was hopeful, confident, creative. The fact that Brady might be capable of dealing severely with people who disappointed him might have contributed to the alacrity of a different subaltern, but Tyler, for all his other failings — disorganization, mental inertia, withdrawal, and above all moral uncleanliness — was no coward. Brady therefore scarcely impressed him in a more than diffusive way. And the episode of Domino, who in and of herself exercised upon him retrospective fascination, had begun to raise within him certain almost magical expectations which he’d otherwise abandoned in life (with one incestuous exception which we’ll get to later). What if the Tenderloin (for instance) comprised a worthwhile puzzle whose solution might enlighten him? (I’ll make a few phone calls on the local level, he murmured to himself.) What if destiny actually had gifts in store for one whose habits had long since confirmed him in giftlessness?

So you didn’t get a name, Brady said.

She mentioned somebody named Sapphire, but I don’t think that’s the Queen. And Big Bitch, Maj, all that stuff, I don’t really believe…

I always thought this Queen was a little like Gotti in New York, Brady laughed. I always thought you really burden yourself once you go out and make a big name for yourself.

Yeah, maybe that’s her thinking, said Tyler, not really listening.

The crazy whore stayed inside the garage for only about ten minutes, which implied that it might be some kind of message drop. (Brady yawned and did not cover his mouth.) Then her glowing trail unraveled itself almost as quickly as it had formed and snailed, shrinking all the way back to Ellis and Jones, where she stopped for five minutes, probably to make a crack buy, and then back to her hotel room. Tyler smiled again.

I’m tired, Brady said.

Tyler left his boss sitting in the car outside, tiptoed up the stairs, and put his ear to the crazy whore’s door. He heard her singing in a sad voice:

They called me Flower-of Gold,

and they called me Flower-of-Silk,

but when I became Queen of the Fold

they bathed me never in milk.

His boss had to go to Vegas for business. Tyler drove him to the airport. Then he drove home and took a cab to North Beach on Brady’s nickel, just to see what the cab drivers knew. The first driver didn’t know anything. Tyler was feeling pretty good. He went out for Italian food, pretending that the woman he wasn’t supposed to love was sitting across from him. If he sat at home he’d get depressed. He didn’t like to read anymore, and he hated television. Darkroom chemicals were expensive. There wasn’t a lot to do.

The cab driver back to the Sunset was a Russian who was listening to a scratchy cassette of sad Russian songs sung by a woman whose voice was more rich and expressive than the crazy whore’s, but her sadness was the same. The driver obviously loved it. Every time the dispatcher tried to call him on the radio, he’d sigh: Idiot.

Were you a soldier? said Tyler.

The Russian nodded glumly, whistling.

Afghanistan?

Afghanistan.

What was your job?

Meteorologist, said the Russsian, and Tyler didn’t believe him.

You must have seen some bad things, Tyler said.

The Russian nodded.

I saw two people get killed today, said Tyler, just to see if he was listening.

Tough, growled the Russian sympathetically, shrugging his pale wide shoulders.

Do you know the Queen? said Tyler.

Not in my organization. Another one. Before, was in mine. Now finished.

Tough, said Tyler, shrugging his shoulders.

Your country finished, said the Russian. You have a problem, a black problem.

The ruby light winked on his answering machine, like one of Carol Doda’s nipples back in the old days on the neon sign for the Condor. Carol Doda had a lingerie shop on Union Street now. Once Tyler had gone inside to pick out something for his sister-in-law Irene, but he hadn’t bought anything, and he never knew whether or not the woman at the cash register was Carol Doda. Now he sat sipping at his Black Velvet, halfheartedly checking boxes on his surveillance report for Brady while he gazed across the street at one of those prismatic Victorian windows aflame with something which tigerishly shone beneath curtains. When he finished the whiskey, the answering machine was still blinking.

A long, friendly message: Somebody wanted him to spy on her husband to see if he were being unfaithful.

Tyler called back. — You know, lady, he said, divorce in California is no-fault. You don’t have to prove adultery to file.

Oh, I understand that, the woman said. I just want to know. I really need to know.

Knowledge is pretty expensive, said Tyler dreamily, checking boxes on his surveillance report. And I’m booked up shadowing royalty right now. Tenderloin royalty.

How about a hundred dollars? the woman said.

A hundred wouldn’t even prime my pump, said Tyler. If you want to prime my pump you have to give me five. And it could run into thousands. What if he only does her once a month? What if he takes her out of town? If he goes out of town then I’ve got to go out of town, too, and that’s going to cost you.

You’re kind of discouraging, the woman said. Almost insulting, too, I should say.

I aim to be, said Tyler. I want you to think long and hard before you decide to go through with this. Most people who come to me don’t like what I show them.

Five hundred is an awful lot of money, the woman said. And you’re not very nice.

I agree. So why don’t you think about it and go to your teller machine to check your bank balance and look your husband in the eye and decide if you want to hate him even more than it sounds like you already do? You’re welcome to hate me instead. That’s my advice, and it’s free advice.

Thank you, the woman said palely.

All right, said Tyler.

He had another Black Velvet and called his brother’s place, but there was no answer. He started to call Brady at the hotel, but thought better of it and hung up.

He tried to locate Sapphire on three databases, but of the sixteen women he found, two supposedly dwelled in Ketchikan, Alaska, and none of the others showed up in California. Maybe the crazy whore was just crazy. More likely, Sapphire was an unregistered nickname.

I seen you! giggled the next girl. She had reddish-pale hair, and the bulb-light exposed her pimpled cheeks. — You was with that blonde Strawberry. No. That’s not Strawberry. That’s Domino.

And what’s your name? said fresh-from-Vegas Brady, who always wanted to take charge.

Why? said the smoothwaxed lips. You datin’? You datin’?

Of course I’m dating, said Brady, oozing what Tyler considered to be unprofessional glee. My name’s Mr. Breakfast, and this is my friend Mr. Lunch. He says he’s not sexually or emotionally compromised. Do you believe him?

I never heard names like that before, said the lips. Set just above that pale chin, they almost reached the gigantic sunglasses.

Well, what’s your name then?

Kitty.

Kitty as in pussy?

Hey, Mr. Breakfast, you got me wrong. I’m not a prostitute. I’ve just fallen on some hard times, that’s all.

How much?

How much you got to spend?

Twenty.

Uh huh. You wanna feed my kitty? And does Mr. Lunch wanna do somethin’? You can come in my mouth or anything you want.

Speaking of mouths, Tyler broke in, guess what your friend Domino told us.

Friend? That bitch ain’t my friend. Any friend she had she stabbed in the back long ago!

She told us she was the Queen of the Whores.

She did? Shit! And you believed her? That bitch must’ve been strung out. Too much junk!

She told us all the other girls worked for her, said Tyler, sounding as stupid as he could. She said she’s the Queen.

She’s not. There’s no such thing.

But she said—

I don’t care what she said. She’s full of shit. She don’t have shit. It’s a man’s world.

You know, said Brady in wonder, she was really strange. She started getting friendly as soon as we started giving her money. Why do you think that is?

Oh, shit! laughed Kitty.

Tyler hung his head. — And Sapphire said… he whispered.

What do you mean, Sapphire said? That retarded bitch can’t even talk! Only mouth she uses is the one between her legs…

But the Queen…

How many times I got to tell you there ain’t no Queen? If there was a Queen, she’d just be a pimp that’s got a pussy. Why should you care? You don’t want to hang out with no pimp.

You think we should see Domino again? said Tyler. Maybe if we gave her more money she could explain things to us.

Don’t have nothing to do with her would be my advice.

Well, what should we tell her next time we see her?

Her? Tell her get lost, man. She’s a nut! All she’s gonna do is get you in trouble. She probably has warrants and shit.

Tyler nodded solemnly. — Well, Kitty, why don’t you and Mr. Breakfast go do your business in that parking garage over there? I’ll just sit here and jerk off.

Mr. Breakfast is gonna make you wait on him? cried Kitty in amazement. Tell him he oughta pay you for that.

I’ll tell him.

You hear that, Mr. Breakfast?

Yeah, I heard, Kitty. Now let’s go to that garage.

I don’t trust that garage. I’ll take you to a better place.

I’ll pay ten bucks extra to take me into that garage, said Brady caressingly.

Kitty scuffed her high heels sadly on the sidewalk. — No, thank you, Mr. Breakfast. I don’t never go in there.

The new hotel room smelled bad. Brady, who’d turned the TV on, ignored it, almost slicing the stack of photos with his nose. The bed sagged down toward him, the blue and white bedspread like the bottom of a canted swimming pool. The TV glowed orange and said: … the significance of this historic achievement. The two men stood discussing money over the round table. Tyler leaned, staring very hard at the stacks of expense money. The eyes in his grey face slowly narrowed as he thought: If only all this money belonged to me, I could run away with Irene. I could take her down a well and we’d stay there making babies and never get out… — Brady, whose feet hurt, leaned backward on his heels, looking softly down at the money while he was explaining. Although the greenbacks lay between them, it was obvious to whom they belonged: Brady kept pointing to them and sometimes touching them, while Tyler gazed down almost shyly. The window was open, and across the gulf between ratridden buildings another window was open, through which the blonde whore Domino was watching them. Tyler smirked and waved. Brady did not see.

I think the garage is the place, said Brady.

Well, boss, you might be right.

You don’t think so, do you?

It’s too early to say.

Arentcha cold? the whore said.

A sunburst of hair, short arms over boobs bigger than the wheels of a Greyhound bus. Her sweater was as nice as light.

You going to warm me up? said Tyler, as enthusiastically as if he hadn’t asked that question a hundred times already.

The black girl’s hair was bright against the dirty white of a massage parlor wall. She leaned to nurse her hair as if it were some elaborately tender creature.

Tell you the truth, said Tyler confidentially, I’m looking for the Queen.

Honey, you done come to the wrong place. This here’s a hundred percent girl you’re talkin’ to! Try the Black Rose.

You know what I mean. Not that kind of queen, but the one that runs things. The Big Spider. The Empress of Darkness.

Honey, sure I know what you mean but it gonna cost you big. It gonna cost you.

How much? he said.

(Her eyes were the shadows behind fences.)

Whatcha really wanna do?

Let’s duck into that parking garage and you can give me a blow.

Sure, honey. But not there. I know a better place.

What’s wrong with that? I see girls go in there all the time.

It’s just not a good place.

So Tyler went with her to the alley. As soon as he’d paid her, he saw her run into the parking garage.

Did she say she knew the Queen?

No, but she implied it.

Did she say she knew the Queen? his boss repeated.

No.

Okay. Do you believe she knows the Queen?

Yes.

Do you believe she knows that you believe it?

Yes.

Can you give me a basis for your belief?

When I said that a pretty girl like her probably got a lot of people to tell her things, she was flattered. She relaxed. She opened up, so to speak—

Are you emotionally compromised?

Tyler sighed. — Not yet, boss.

I think I understand. And then?

She made a reference to the parking garage. She said she never goes there. It’s on the tape. You heard it?

It’s not my policy to comment on what I did or did not hear. Not to you. So let’s keep rolling.

Well, then I said I knew what parking garage she was referring to and I winked at her. Then she laughed.

So it was nonverbal?

Yes.

I follow. Do you believe that she believes the parking garage is where the Queen stays?

Yes.

And do you also believe that the parking garage is where the Queen stays?

Yes.

Okay. So we’re ready to meet the Queen.

Yes.

Do you believe that we’re ready to meet the Queen?

Yeah, I guess so.

Are you sure?

No.

Why aren’t you sure?

Maybe she’s dangerous.

How might she be dangerous?

I don’t know, boss. But I’ll tell you honestly. I didn’t believe in this at first, but now it’s starting to spook me.

What can she do to you?

Probably nothing that I can’t do back to her.

Do you want to go in?

I’ll do it.

Would you rather have more time?

Yes.

Is it because you want more expense money?

Oh, partly. And partly because I don’t know what we’ll find.

Don’t worry about money, Henry, said his boss with surprising gentleness. I promise I’ll take care of you. Will you go in with me tomorrow?

Okay.

Do you want to go in with me or would you rather go in alone? Don’t lie to me.

I’d rather go in alone. I don’t know how good your breaking and entering skills are, Mr. Brady. You already told me that private eye stuff isn’t your field. And it makes me uneasy when a client wants to help me break the law. But I don’t mind if you have a good reason, or if you get off on participating, just like Domino said. In my book, you’re emotionally compromised. But if you want to distract the ticket guy that’d be useful.

I get the hint, said Brady with a grin. It’s okay. I trust you.

Past the boarded-up bakery on Larkin Street Tyler wandered the following forenoon, his hand on his wallet as if life were really good, past the school sign and into the dark garage. — It’s a perfect place, Brady had said. Nobody’s ever here. Nobody but whores. — Tyler walked back to the bakery, got into his car, and drove up the slanting urine-smelling tunnel. On the second floor he backed the vehicle against the wall and sat watching the ramps — the standard orientation of any prudent man getting a blow job. As a matter of fact, Tyler did not like blow jobs. But backing against the wall remained prudent. The cold friend in his armpit did not show. The ramp to the third floor was cut off by a grating which seemed to have been down for a long time. There was light behind it, light sweating and stinking on concrete.

Nobody around, Brady tying up the attendant with some endless complaint… Perfect. He stuck a straw into the little spray can of Wallylube and tooted the lock. Then he thrust a half-diamond pick into the keyway and started lifting pins. They all dropped, one by one; the lock was in good working order, as a Queen’s lock ought to be, especially on her chastity belt. He listened as they fell: a six-pin lock. Now for the tension wrench and the plug spinner… Just enough tension, thank you… He decided against the raking method and went by feel. He was holding the pick in just the same way that Brady held that fat vulgar rollerball pen of his. With the hook pick he raised the driver pins above the shearline, chamber by chamber; the plug rotated three or four degrees, making a shelf on which the top pins must rest so that they couldn’t slam back down like a vindictive whore’s teeth. (No sidebar, fortunately; this was not a General Motors car lock.) Now the bottom pins could move unobstructedly in their channels of vileness.

The lock opened on the fifth bounce. He stepped into the greasy light.

To say that there were times when Henry Tyler knew his life was ashes would have been an understatement in the English manner. People who possess no backbones whatsoever (and preferably no minds, either) can be most easily pleased, like children eating ice cream; where the ice cream money comes from, and under what conditions they receive it — to say nothing of the sanguinary destiny of even the most miraculous vanilla-chocolate cow — never breaches the barriers of their victorious vacuity. Next case: Roman senator types, so prodigiously favored or ossified with backbones that they can scarcely sit down, constitute the second most fortunate regiment of souls; when events fail them, pride carries on, and when the latter dies they will probably succeed in staggering a few steps farther, fortified by philosophic resignation, until they fall at last into their open graves, muttering: At least I did the right thing. — Tyler, like most of us, had not so much claimed membership in as been claimed by the third group, comprised of those who know, and are shamed, but do not or cannot act. If the grim first half of that black Book (rarely to be met with in Tenderloin hotels because its pages were long ago cannibalized for rolling papers) truly knows whereof it speaks, why, then Tyler’s own losers’ club got inaugurated in the days of Cain and Abel, whose parents, like evicted junkies who boast that even now they can wrap the landlord around their grimy little fingers, had continued to insist that they could still get right with God. Why, sooner of later He’d have to forgive them! It just wasn’t Christian for Him to go on holding a grudge like that. After all, they’d only eaten one apple — they hadn’t even finished it, if you consider the core, which had borne a worm or serpent or something (and wasn’t that God’s fault, to provide them with rotten fruit?); no, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that apple had scarcely been worth saving. (Thus spake the whore who’d stolen a mere twenty from Tyler’s pocket while he was on Mason Street calling his answering machine.) Remembering Eden’s swanky landmarks — the silvery river of vodka, the meadows of opium poppies springing white and orange in a nutmeg breeze, the Chinese-style zen rock garden whose sparkling pebbles were all refined crack cocaine — Adam and Eve could scarcely believe that their happy pre-Lapserian eternities had become dust. Anyhow, they weren’t damned; they were on parole. Nothing was final. If I put a gun to my head, I know perfectly well that even after I’ve pulled the trigger I can always duck out of the way or even blow the bullet back down the barrel with a cheery gust of breath, because it was I who initiated the cause; what injustice if I couldn’t control the effect! — No matter, the expelled spouses said to one another; He could come talk to them anytime and they’d help Him see the light. (Call this no backbone at all, or else backbone so well crystalized as to occupy the cranial cavity.) But Adam and Eve’s boys, sullen, lice-infested, and pallid from too many seasons of hunting blind-fish in the familial cave, never owned that solace. Imperfection had not originated with them, nor had responsibility. They were cursed without meaning or recourse. Cain, unable to believe this at first, crept near Eden as soon as he was grown, and found only an angel with a flaming sword who threatened him with death. Cain wanted to know why. Still unable to believe in reality, prepared to bow and beg to make life other than it was, Cain somehow retained in his mind the image of the Hall of Justice in San Francisco, where a steady or lucky customer may well meet with the expressionless lordliness of the white-moustached, paunchy, black-uniformed guardian of the entrance, who stands with his arms at his sides while Cain, the man with a problem, explains and explains. Finally, in a clear and even friendly voice, the guardian settles everything: Go to Room 101 tomorrow. That’s really the best way. — Okay, thank you, says the man rushing furtively away. — Cain was certain that there must be a Room 101 thereabouts, within which mercy would be served on little plates, glistening like slices of fresh-killed fish. And, although he never would have thought himself capable of doing this, he fell down on his knees before the angel and bowed his head. The angel struck him a glancing blow with his sword, and Cain’s garments burst into flames. He rolled in the dust until the fire was quenched, cupped mud on his burns, then rose and again uttered the word: Why? — It has nothing to do with you or me, replied the angel. But understand this, boy: you’re going to be punished as long as you live. Automatic bench warrant. Now I’m going to count three. If you’re not running back to your cave by then, I’m going to burn your legs off. Don’t ever come back here. One… Two… — Cain told his younger brother everything. — Maybe it isn’t the same for you, he said. Maybe God likes you. I’ll show you where the place is. Then you can ask the angel to take pity on our family. — But Abel had already made up his mind not to tempt wrath with more impulsive sallies. Hadn’t they been warned? He whispered to his brother that he was afraid because he was still too little, that he couldn’t run quickly, but the truth, which he had expressed in the language of expediency only because that would produce the best effect upon his brother, was that he actually accepted lifelong submission as a moral principle. Who was correct, then; who was exemplary — Cain or Abel? I don’t care, as long as the angel wouldn’t let anyone speak. (By stating the matter thus, I fall perhaps a shade on Abel’s side, being unconvinced that his visit to the the gates of Eden would have been any more pleasant than for Cain.) — Enough of all this. Let’s just get on with it, as Tyler’s proudly impatient brother John would have said. — History with its taints, reverberations, irrevocable deeds and preexisting conditions may temporarily explain how a soul finds itself shackled, or not, but, while questions of how may be resolved to any degree of satisfaction, questions of why remain unanswered, merely slimed over by arbitrariness. Do you believe in original sin? It seems awfully unfair, and ultimately inexplicable. For Eden, take for instance the squiggles of light on the sunny dance floor of Pearl Ubungen’s Tenderloin studio, where Pearl, pretty and a little famous, sat with her baby in her lap saying tatatatatatititi and her dancers’ obliging heels going bimbimbimbimbimbimbimbim. They were rehearsing for some “event.” A church bell tolled in the tower. In the sunken courtyard, barefoot Asian children played. Then came the fence, and then came outside where a shivering man in a hooded sweatshirt slowly urinated in his trousers, whispering obscenities. Where did he come from? Why did he stink? Why were he and the children, separated only by that fence through which each party could see the other, clothed in such different fortunes? — To put a point on it, Abel prayed timidly to a God Whom he feared, of Whom he expected nothing — correctly, as we know from the tale’s round words, for God declined to protect him. As for Cain, he abandoned himself to anger and crime. He couldn’t kill God or the angel, so he killed Abel. Somewhat wanting in backbone that murderer was, too, for he pleaded innocent, just like any cheap pimp who’s gotten busted. But grant him this: In the end he did at least wear his Mark with defiant pride, and set out most adventurously to take up housekeeping with Lilith’s daughters and other whores in the Land of Nod, which I’ve always assumed was the place that heroin addicts go to, somewhere far past Jackson Street’s ideograms white and red on different colored awnings, somewhere out of Chinatown, maybe behind the Green Door Massage or in the Stockton tunnel or even Union Square where a red substance resembling Abel’s blood offered itself for purchase in the windows of Macy’s. And Cain, I read, begat Pontius Pilate, who begat firstly innocent bystanders, and secondly good Germans, and thirdly Mr. Henry Tyler, that newly ageing lump of flesh with the same stale problem of an irremediable spiritual impotence — nay, rottenness — of which he had not been the cause and for which there could be no solution. Acquiescence would render him more contemptible than he already was, and quite possibly doom him — I cite the precedent of Abel — while backbone would get him into trouble just as it had Cain. And yet Tyler said to himself: Someday I want to show backbone. I want to do something daring, good and important, even if it destroys me. — And he waited to be called to that worthwhile thing. — Sometimes he saw the narrow face of an angel opening to utter languages which he could not speak, enmeshing her words in that crazy metal spiderweb of ceiling which characterizes certain fancy poolhalls. He wanted to believe in these annunciations sufficiently to act, but the difficulty was that such backbone-showing demanded legal if not biological incest, for Tyler’s angel was his Korean sister-in-law, Irene, who, not beautiful but dear, came to him for help with all her marital problems because she knew him to be on her side. Sometimes she kissed him on the lips.

Am I my brother’s keeper? asked Cain, but Tyler (such is history, such progress) no longer thought to ask. This dereliction had to do less with any childhood offenses which his brother might have committed than with a mutual antipathy almost chemical in its inarguability, reinforced by the many successes of John in business. Unlike Cain’s, Tyler’s jealousy never drove him to the commission of actual evil (which would, as we’ve agreed, require backbone). The nature of the brothers’ relations promoted aloofness rather than feuds. And propinquity did not even permit open disregard. There was, in the first place, their mother to be placated. She lived a mere hour and a half away, in Sacramento, which inevitably branded their existence with periodic family gatherings. Both Tyler and his brother dwelled and worked in San Francisco, that ingrown little city which with improbable regularity draws friends, relatives, and other enemies across one another’s path. What could they do? Most of all, of course, there was Irene, thrilling, perturbing, and — he granted it — strangely conventional almost to the point of shallowness — but he loved her for her gentleness, her acceptance of him, and her easily satisfied neediness. No doubt the illictness of his feelings deepened them, in consequence not only of human nature but also of the corruption of his voyeuristic occupation. Tyler hunted for people and stalked them, mostly because they were doing something wrong or because somebody refused to trust them. (If I get hired, that means something just went wrong, he liked to say. This has gotta be a low point for my client.) Even the rare missing persons cases which he took on had little to do with love or a yearning for reunification. Only once in his fourteen-year career had he ever done anything as pleasant as put a lady in touch with her old sweetheart.

The search for the Queen of the Whores typified his bread and butter. Mr. Brady, he was sure, had no particularly honorable or romantic motive in seeking her. The narrow omnipotence which Tyler rented out to his clients came to inform his own heart with a dreamy absence of scruples, and a habit of perceiving from a too professional standpoint anyone who interested him. This is not to imply that he spied on Irene, nor that Irene’s own qualities had nothing to do with attraction — for she was truly unique, not in her character but in her soul. And she was wounded; her soul cried like a wounded bird’s, and he heard the cry. John did not hear, at least not anymore. Isn’t that the natural outcome of marriage? John committed small and egregious rudenesses toward her family — an excellent way to make an Asian woman suffer even to the point of weeping. One February weekend Irene’s parents threw a birthday party for John, and John showed up with someone who claimed to be an old college friend who looked critically at the food and asked: Is this event catered? — No, said Irene’s sister Pammy. Mom and I cooked it all ourselves. — Oh, the woman said. I didn’t think it was catered. No wonder there’s nothing here worth eating. — A look of disgust flashed across John’s mouth, but he said nothing. Irene wanted to cry then for her sister’s sake. She said to Tyler (who of course hadn’t been present) that she didn’t care when she was walking down the street alone and some white person said: Will you look at that Chink! but when anyone insulted her sister or her parents in her presence, it was all she could do not to attack. She said that she must be a very bad person because she often felt such impulses. Tyler, slowly shaking his head, wondered if that meant that she often got called a Chink. He thought to himself that there couldn’t have been any human being more special and good than Irene. It hurt him to see how John treated her. Had he also cause for grievance, Tyler wondered (knowing from his work as well as from his own memories the wretched secrets which may infest domestic life), or was John simply morally inanimate? John was so cold with her — unconfiding and unhappy!

Irene said that once she’d asked her husband why he didn’t divorce her if he felt so miserable, and he just turned toward her with a weary look and said: Because I know you’ll take good care of me.

Don’t you think that’s wrong? Irene said.

Oh, he’s trying to be nice. That’s just John’s way…

But isn’t it wrong?

It’s too bad, honey, said Tyler, stroking the back of her neck. It’s really a shame. Remember, I told you how it would be before you got married.

I know. I’m sorry.

Don’t be sorry, sweetheart, he said, embracing her. She kissed him passionately on the lips.

It was a fresh cold winter’s eve of shiny raincoats and headlights of stalled traffic like luminous pairs of dinner plates stood on their edges; the pavement had become an ebony liquid which reflected upside down the people walking on it, stuck by the soles of their shoes to their inverted selves. Tyler had invited Irene and John out to dinner, knowing that John would be too office-burdened to attend. Sometimes he wondered if his brother were angry at him, or grateful for taking Irene off his hands, or simply oblivious. Mostly he tried not to think about it. They were walking down Geary Street now and Irene was squeezing his hand. He wanted to put her fingers into his mouth and suck them one by one. They strode along in happy silence. Tyler felt everything to be proceeding as it should. No surprises would frighten him.

Among those Japanese restaurants on the edge of the Tenderloin he had chosen one called Kabukicho. The client who’d first taken him there, an old Japanese banker very correctly jealous of his young wife, had been amused by the resonance of such a name in this place, for Kabukicho is one of Tokyo’s red light districts. Tyler had smiled uncomfortably, fitted his fingers together, scratched his poorly shaved chin, collected his check, passed across the table the sealed white envelope of color photographs which documented just what the wife had been doing for three days and three nights in the Nikko Hotel, and pretended to be as amused by those photos as the banker strove to be — gleam of spectacles, gleam of teeth, wide carnivorous mouth! Then the banker said: What do you usually say to the client under these circumstances? — Oh, I don’t know, Tyler muttered, rubbing his chin. I remember this gal who sent me to check on her husband. She calls in tears at eleven at night, her life’s destroyed. Just, you know, I’m not a shrink, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry it happened. I guess that’s what I usually say… — He never saw the banker again. That had been good money, with which he’d bought a new computer, coaxed his car into compliance with the smog inspection, reduced two of his most pressing credit card debts and paid rent for two easy months. Kabukicho thus offered good associations, not to mention good food. He also liked the polite, well-ordered bustle of the place. The clocks were sashimi dashboards and everything was neat, Asian businessmen flipping open their cellular phones, earnest young white social-democratic couples singing out: Thank you very much! as they went out the exit, squeezing past the line of rich and hungry folks sliced multiply by the blinds through which could be seen pink and green neon reifications of Tyler’s loneliness across the street.

The sign said: SORRY — NO RESERVATIONS ACCEPTED. Tyler led his date to the head of the line and said: Excuse me; we had a reservation for two. — The waiter studied him without comment until Tyler drew from his wallet an embossed silver card which the Japanese banker had given him. The waiter accordingly clasped his hands and led them to the far end of the sushi bar, where a potted bamboo obscured them from the cardless vassals whom they had cut. Irene giggled with pleasure and squeezed Tyler’s arm.

I love you, darling, he said.

Love you, too! she whispered, kissing him again.

She had dressed up for him, and her long brownish-black hair fell warmly down to her shoulders in a spill of glorious asymmetry which dominated her gold necklace and the careful leather buttons of her long red dress. Impassively cleaning his glasses, he imagined his mouth on her cunt for the rest of their lives. How long could that be under such circumstances? A week? Just as a sashimi barman must continually wipe down the counter, so Tyler felt compelled to touch this woman as often as he could, in order to thereby scour away the sooty gloomy thoughts that blew in upon his shining mind. He would not think about the ordinary, unforgivable sadness of the world for as long as he could be next to her. She ordered flying fish roe, a salmon skin handroll, some yellowtail, unagi, and octopus. To give him pleasure, she ordered a beer for herself; she knew that it made him happy when she drank with him.

Did you work today? she said.

Yeah, still with that crazy rich guy from Missouri, he said as the barman’s knife began flickering across the translucent windowpanes of fish, cutting them into shutters.

What does he want from you?

Oh, he wants me to find somebody in the Tenderloin.

Is it dangerous?

Not at all. It’s kind of interesting actually…

You look sad, she said.

Sometimes I get so goddamned sad, so sad for everybody. Well, sad for myself most of all, I guess, since I’m as selfish as the next guy, but you know, Irene, all the time in my job I see people hurting themselves, hurting each other, pissing on each other, sleeping in their own piss. I wish I could help just one of them, but I don’t know how.

You’re an angel, Irene said. You really are. I feel so selfish compared to you. All I ever worry about is my own little life…

You’re the angel, not me, he said, finishing his beer. The waitress looked at him as she took the bottle away, and he nodded. Irene hadn’t finished hers yet. She was extraordinary to gaze on, but he didn’t know why, her face being in fact puzzlingly ordinary in each of its parts; it was the affection and gentleness that animated it which made her so sweet to look at.

How’s life at home? he said.

You know how it is, she said.

Sure, he said. Should we try the fugu?

After he’d paid the bill he helped her on with her raincoat which was yellow like a child’s and walked her past the sharp-cornered marble pillars of hotels pimpled with raindrops, their lamps reaching smeary fingers of light up into the cool grey sky. Tourists were hurrying out of closing shops. He glanced down into the Tenderloin and saw the folded neon leg of a woman winking but never unkinking.

Please don’t tell any of this to John, his sister-in-law was saying.

Don’t worry, honey. The car is up this way.

You know, I told my mother about you. She thinks it’s funny that you and I are so close.

Have you told her how you feel about your marriage?

That would hurt her too much. I always tell her I’m so happy, John’s so good to me… Because, you know, when he was making me cry before we got married, she told me to break it off, but I wouldn’t…

A big drunk black man sauntered up to them and shouted in Irene’s ear: I’m gonna fuck you up, you slanteyed stinking Chink, stinking Chink—

Tyler put his right arm tightly around her and slipped his left hand into his coat pocket where the pistol was. — Don’t feel bad, sweetheart, he said to her, never taking his eyes off the man’s face. You’re not Chinese, so he’s not talking about you.

He led her around the man, who stood there swearing and muttering.

Her hand was fiery with hot sweat. Her fingers were squeezing his with all their strength. He could not stop himself anymore. He brought her fingertips to his lips and begin to lick the hot, delicious sweat.

Now Irene was gone. He almost couldn’t bear it.

Driving across the cable car tracks, which offered rain-light more glancing than the tips of hustlers’ cigarettes, he heard someone yelling from the direction of Glide Memorial but couldn’t see a soul. He spied a man and a woman doing business by a grating. He saw a woman, drunk, shaking her dead-snake hair and spreading her fingers from which raindrops fell as if she were a Calico hundred-shot assault pistol ejecting bullet casings onto the concrete. He turned on the windshield wipers to control this very fine rain like sooty static crawling down the building-fronts, and discovered directly in front of him a man slowly walking as though his feet hurt, dragging an immense vinyl gripsack; he braked until that man was out of the street. He rolled down the window and drove to Turk and Leavenworth, where a callipygian woman snailed her way through the rain, too wet to bother lowering her head anymore. Rain began to dribble down onto the passenger seat. He saw a single darkly brilliant strand of Irene’s hair on the headrest. Somebody honked behind him, but the orange hand of a DON’T WALK sign thrust itself balefully into his perceptions. He rolled up the window. The light changed. Advancing west on Turk Street, he saw a man drinking from a styrofoam cup and gazing at the reflection of his shoe on the pavement; then he saw a man whose raincoat resembled some sea mammal’s skin, sleeping in a puddle of urine and rain.

He saw Domino go skittering into the parking garage, shot three souvenirs of her with the four hundred millimeter lens, and noted down the time and frame numbers on the surveillance report form on his clipboard.

He drove up to North Beach to see if Irene’s living room window were still lit. It was not. Perhaps John had come home and they were already fucking, but he didn’t think so because she’d told him that they hardly ever did it anymore. Maybe she was reading in the bathtub. Maybe she had gone to sleep. Perhaps John had asked her to pick him up at work.

Easily and rapidly now he rolled down the shining streets to the Tenderloin where outside the XX and XXX preview booths, guys in baseball caps were having a discussion. Extending the antenna microphone, he heard:

They be tryin’ to say they ask for it.

Shit, baby, yeah. My ho done ast for it. I give huh a good smack upside the jaw.

Hey, you s’pose it’s true what they say?

(Somebody honked behind him. He pulled into a loading zone and let the car pass, which it did, angrily blaring its horn.)

You better shut your lip. Lookit that honky in the car over there like some spy for Vice.

He don’t have nothin’ on me!

Nothin’ but parole violation, mothafuckah.

Hey, I’m goin’ to court, I say I sold dope on a bet. That’s all it was, Your Honor, just a mothafuckin’ bet.

And yoah ho won’t nevah bail you out!

If she doan bail me out, she done ast for it. I’m gonna break huh teeth. She’ll give bettah head then anyways…

Hey, remembah what I said. Maybe it’s true what they say.

Maybe honky over there needs a piece of rock. A nice big piece of white girl.*

What they say?

They say when you talk vi’lent ’bout yoah ho, sometimes the Queen be listening…

Fuck that bitch! I ain’t scared a no goddamn bitch! Brain’s in her cunt; my dick is twice her I.Q.!

An’ my dick’s the othah twice of yours!

Hey, check out that honky sittin’ there. I doan like that honky. He come out here, I fuck him up—

Tyler, bored anyhow, but glad to learn that the Queen might represent justice, pulled out of the loading zone and drove to Eddy and Jones where a knowing pimp was explaining something grand to his knowing wife-employee; there walked Domino in the rain; he remembered the shape of her bullet-scar. Her nose looked longer than usual, as if she’d been telling more lies about the Queen. The red neon whisper HOTEL made rain-sweating bricks blush, as if on fire with the slumlord’s lust.

He honked four times, and she came running. He said: Do you remember me?

Sure, asshole. You’re the misogynist. Are you dating or not?

I’m lonely, he said. I’ll pay you five bucks just to ride around the block with me.

Ten’ll work.

How about seven?

Fucking cheapskate, she laughed, getting in. He counted out a five and two ones from his wallet, added another single for courtesy, and drove silently around the block.

Here we are, he said.

You mean that’s it?

Uh huh.

You know what? said Domino. You’re a fool. You’re making me really angry.

Because you got something for nothing, but it wasn’t enough? Or did I hurt your feelings because I didn’t want to fuck you?

Look, pal. You don’t know the first thing about my feelings. So don’t patronize me.

I’m not trying to patronize you, he said. I was just lonely, that’s all. And I thank you for riding with me.

She softened. — All right, she said. What’s your name?

Henry.

I’m Domino.

I know.

She kissed his cheek faster than any rattlesnake could ever strike, then leaped out of the car and loped away. Tyler smiled uneasily, scratching his chin.

Uncovering no activity at the entrance to the parking garage (a fact of little probable value, which he recorded nonetheless on the surveillance report form soon to pad out Brady’s files), Tyler drove up to Union Street where an immense pear of light bloomed from an apartment’s stairway and stretched halfway across the pavement. A truck blinked its weary lights, and a foghorn warned of the least dangerous thing.

His brother John came out, holding another woman’s hand.

Once Irene had asked him whether he had any reason to believe that his brother might be unfaithful, and he, professionally knowing that all men and all women were unfaithful to something, said: I don’t know. I wondered that at your wedding. I hoped that he’d be good to you. I wanted you to be happy…

And tonight, of course, he’d been holding Irene’s hand.

John Alan Tyler was not yet sufficiently established in his career to own a house in San Francisco, much as that would have pleased his wife. This had less to do with money than with the allocation of money. (Doesn’t that apply to all of us? Couldn’t the crazy whore buy a mansion in Pacific Heights, if only a certain percentage of her gross receipts went into the piggybank for, say, seven thousand years?) Although John was still young, having only recently passed the third-of-a-century mark, he received a salary almost commensurate with his idea of his own importance. Much of it he had to spend on clothes, because in the office it was a matter of faith for all to appear in five different suits a week, with extra apparel for interviews, public appearances and business trips. John did not set this policy, and I cannot disparage him for abiding by it. Then there were his neckties, which his brother had mocked during that first meeting with Domino. You wouldn’t believe how expensive a necktie could be until you’d gone shopping with John, who remained convinced, perhaps rightly, that everybody who mattered knew how much those neckties cost, and treated the wearer accordingly. — His elder brother, to whom stripes were stripes and plaids were plaids (or, when he was drunk vice versa), did not matter. Still, John would say one thing for Hank: He was very good to Irene.

John was well aware that his wife had reason to feel neglected. He loved her sincerely. When she had broken off their engagement, he hadn’t even reproached her, although sitting alone he’d slowly squeezed a wineglass in his hand until it shattered. John belonged to the Order of Backbone. When called upon, he could be generous and magnanimous, even good. Once Irene agreed to marry him after all, their future deliciously in the bag, he did not feel quite so called upon. Irene was an excellent woman who’d undoubtedly go to heaven when she died. But a necessary part of her excellence was an idealism which he admired but did not share. To speak more plainly, John had discovered that Irene was positively mushy with fantasies. She’d required a “fairytale wedding,” which he’d provided, although his mother had been against it and he was still paying off the bills. She also expected to live happily ever after. She seemed to believe that since they were married, he shouldn’t work anymore, just stay home day and night with her. She was spoiled. John had to put her straight. First of all, he explained, he did have his friends, who had known him long before he’d met her and whom he was not prepared to dismiss simply because he had married somebody. Then there was the fact that he did have to go to work amidst the tan-hued, grooved cliffs of the financial district, where below mailboxes and flags, chilled by the Transamerica Pyramid’s steeply tapering shadow, breadwinners hastened to new appointments, with their neckties blowing. Irene for her part had started as a dental receptionist, but then the dentist got audited and that was the end of that. She was reading the want ads now — so she said. John wished that she didn’t get so sad and bored, especially on those foggy rainy nights when he must stay late at the office. Precisely because he did not intend to work for Rapp and Singer more than another five years (unless they made him full partner on excellent conditions), he had to put in his time. He wanted a brilliant promotion, and then he wanted to transship, probably for Harville and Keane, although Dow, Emerson, Prescott and Liu occupied a comparable place in his aspirations. Once he had gotten in solid with Harville and Keane, which would take another three years of late office nights, he wouldn’t be much over forty and Irene would be just thirty-four, at which point they could start a family. John knew not to stop at one child, which would otherwise grow up lonely and spoiled like his wife. He himself had benefitted from the fraternal relation, as he was the first to acknowledge; certainly Hank felt the same way. Sometimes he wished that he and Hank had been closer in age. As John saw it, the second child ought to come quickly after the first — ideally, not more than a year later. Two nearly at once would be less work for Irene than two spaced several years apart. Besides, they could play together. Whether or not there would be a third child remained open to discussion. If Irene felt strongly one way or the other, he would not quarrel with her. When he closed his eyes, however, he could imagine two little boys and a little girl; he could almost see their half-Asian faces and dark eyes as they played games on the living room carpet, their voices lowered because he was working. The boys would be named Eric and Michael, and he thought that their sister would be called Suzanne. Irene could choose their Korean middle names, which she’d most likely do in consultation with her extended family. She had already agreed to stay home for a few years once the babies were born. In fact, a few months after their marriage John had spoken with his mother-in-law about this. Where was Irene then? She must have been out shopping with her cousins, or playing golf with her father. The conversation would have taken place at Christmas, when they always drove down to Los Angeles. Although Irene loved to complain about his rudeness to her parents, he and they actually got along quite well. Irene’s mother said that Eric, Michael, and Suzanne all sounded like excellent names. In confidence, she told John that Irene lacked common sense. She hated to say this about her own daughter, she continued, smiling and ducking her head, but that was how it was. Irene always went about with her head in the clouds. Her mother thought her quite lucky to have met a man like John, who would take care of her and perhaps indulge her a little. John nodded while his mother-in-law refilled his soju glass. He knew that nothing he could do would make Irene’s parents happier than transforming them into grandparents. And Irene wanted children even more than he. In about seven years, then, life would be exactly as it should be. They would have a house in Marin, which would soothe his southern California girl of a wife, who remained unaccustomed to this crowded, expensive city where most people had to live in apartments.

Meanwhile he wished that he could make Irene happier. Sometimes, not often, he told her to take the credit cards and go shopping. Then he did his best not to wince at the bills. It pleased him to imagine her pleasing herself at Macy’s or the Emporium, and he attempted always to take her mother’s words to heart. Poor thing, she did need a little indulgence. But how much indulgence was enough? She might have gotten more out of him, had she not so frequently expressed the view that he kept her on a leash. She truly didn’t realize what she cost him. Regarding the payments on her wedding ring, Irene had quickly put him in his place: These were to be accomplished by him in much the same style as defecation — behind a closed door, with all evidence removed at the end, and no reference to them afterward. Well, his mother was almost the same way; he could understand that. But Irene, unlike his mother, almost justified the appellation of spendthrift. At the end of their very first tax year he had been sickened by the marriage penalty, which was hardly Irene’s fault, but he had still been deluded enough then to believe that a man need hide nothing from his wife. The result of that conversation had not quite been what John expected. Well, John had learned! He no longer criticized her to her face, and he never had the heart to speak ill of her to others, either. When the bills came in, he paid. Irene would buy what she wanted to buy — oh, shoes for Irene, exercise classes for Irene, Irene’s trips home to her parents, Irene’s ski lift tickets. Let’s not mention Irene’s habits in grocery shopping (she had to get the most expensive brands of everything, especially paper towels, which she truly wasted), or Irene’s allergies, which required them to buy a humidifier and an air purifier, both items which increased their utility bills. And the quarters for the washing machine dowstairs! He couldn’t believe how many quarters Irene needed all the time… Then there were the restaurants and then there were the clothes. Because such bargains proved his wife’s budgetary unreliability, John computed all the finances himself, and by the time he’d wrapped up that homework and maybe (more rarely than he realized) went bowling with his friends or watched a cop show on television, or sat through a romantic video with Irene, it was time for bed. He got very tired at night, even on the weekends; Irene had no idea how hard he worked! When he turned out the light, she sometimes rolled into his arms. At first he’d found that flattering, but it became an imposition. He wished that he could make a deal with Irene, but venturing onto that subject, like the matter of the wedding ring, would cost him no matter what. He felt guilty to disappoint her. And yet it had begun to seem that he disappointed her no matter what he did! If that was truly how it had to be, why open his mouth? He talked with his friends, who agreed that night after night a man couldn’t be expected to lie always at the ready, and if he wasn’t, then what right did the woman have to sulk? He wished that his friends could explain this to Irene; better just to say that he was tired. One night she’d forgotten to take her pill, as he’d discovered when he got up to drink some water. He shook her awake and made her swallow that pill then and there. Didn’t she know that they weren’t ready to have a baby? Irene said that she was sorry. A couple of nights later, he heard her vomiting in the bathroom. She said that the pills sometimes made her nauseated. Well, he didn’t want to compel her to take her pills if they made her sick, but he didn’t want a baby yet, either. As a matter of fact, carnally she had never appealed to him. One of the reasons that she had broken off their engagement that first time was his unceasing commandments to lose weight. Particularly with her clothes off, there was something grotesque about her shining belly and her big breasts. Her pubic hair in particular seemed obscene. It was so dark and rank, like weeds. Actually, her entire body sickened him. He tried not to contemplate the fact that he would be looking at it for the next half-century. John had chalked up several relationships before — not that he’d ever been promiscuous like Hank — and he admitted that the female form had ceased to surprise him. In his view, sex was the least important part of marriage. Barton Rapp at Rapp and Singer, a man of more than sixty, had told him that after age fifty or sixty, most married couples preferred to sleep apart. They got a better rest that way. — You know, John, Mr. Rapp had said, one morning you just wake up and realize that you’ve had enough. — John didn’t yet feel called upon to make that separate bed a habit, but there were certainly nights when he would have preferred his own mattress. Although Irene fortunately did not snore, she had a habit of smacking her lips in her sleep, as if she were hungry for something, endlessly, loudly, revoltingly, like his mother’s dog Mugsy lapping up water from a bowl. Sometimes her noises awoke him, especially on nights when office worries pressed down upon his brain. Or, startled by some inimical dream, she might jerk suddenly, coiling all the blankets around her. She had any number of ways of ruining John’s sleep. Usually he told her to get ready for bed while he was saving his files on the computer, and he waited until he heard her come out of the bathroom before he actually powered down. Then he drank a glass of skim milk, brushed and dental flossed his teeth, urinated, washed his hands, shut off the bathroom light, and stood in the bedroom doorway. Sometimes she was reading a romance and sometimes she was staring at the ceiling. The light switch was by the door, and it would have been pointless to get into bed and then right out again, so he turned it off as soon as he came in If she was reading, she put her book face down on the vanity; he always waited for that sound. Then, closing the door behind him, he undressed in the dark. He would already have taken his suit off when he’d first come home, so it was no worry to drape his casual clothes over the back of the chair. — Good night, he’d say, getting into bed. — Good night, said Irene. — Sometimes he laid his arm across her shoulders then. He didn’t have to set the alarm. It went off automatically each morning at seven-twenty unless he reprogrammed it. On Sundays they often slept in until eight-thirty or nine, unless his work was pressing or some anxiety awakened him. Anxiety might on second thought be the wrong word, for John enjoyed his life and his work. He was a capably practical person, and the impression of youth and foppishness which he unknowingly gave off to the senior partners only made them smile indulgently, for youth would pass, was passing already; as for the other, they knew that the promptings of such vices would drive him up the ladder, whose price at every rung they would extract.

I cannot say that there was much talk about John in the office, Roland Garrow with his slicked-back hair being the funny one, the one whom everyone in the office laughed about. Roland had been known to come running in five minutes late, with his tie askew; he patronized most of the same stores that John did, but John did not tell him about Donatello’s, a small shop in San Mateo, of all places, which sold hand-painted silk ties direct from Italy. Once John saw the mark of sooty lips on Roland’s tie and smiled all day; he realized that Roland had caught his tie in the elevator door.

Roland was actually quite clever. Mr. Singer, who prided himself on his ability to distinguish mere immaturity from inability, had let it be known that he was charmed by Roland, while Mr. Rapp likewise indulged him, admiring the young man’s energy (he could certainly shoot out a quick if unpolished brief), and being entertained by Roland’s anecdotes of nights misspent on the town. Both partners liked to consider themselves bon vivants who had sowed several football fields’ worth of wild oats, although in their day they had actually resembled John far more than Roland. They enjoyed good wine; Mr. Rapp was, as he put it, passionate about opera, had a box seat, and in the mornings was often to be heard whistling some aria from “Tosca” or even “Lucia di Lammermoor.” He went to Seattle every two or three years to witness the Ring. It was said that the San Francisco Opera would come into quite a bit of money at his death. Mr. Singer exemplified a more down-to-earth type; baseball fan and egalitarian, he was the one to whom the clients came when they needed a deferment on their bills. I repeat: Both of them were delighted by Roland, particularly Mr. Singer with his thin, cackling laugh. Roland had quickly become their rosy one, their prodigal if not quite their son. John, on the other hand, lacked a sense of humor. He was not what you’d call Mr. Personality, Mr. Singer once said. Naturally, personalities finish last. There were no plans to make Roland full partner.

They knew very well that John was thinking about leaving. For one thing, all junior partners thought that way. Industry policy as much as personal cunning had taught Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer to make the young ones work as hard as possible. That way, they themselves didn’t need to work as much; they deserved to coast a little now, after all! (Mr. Rapp had already begun to talk about retirement.) And if John, Roland, Ellen or even Yancy left, then the bosses would have already gotten their money’s worth. The other half of this pincer movement was to pay high bonuses, and to imply that promotion was within sight. This invariably resulted in more work for more years. I cannot accurately claim that John understood this, for to him the minds of others were not simply those proverbially closed books, but closed books which he had no interest in reading. And had it been explained to him, it would not have affected him in any way, unlike Roland, who would have slammed his fist in his palm and shouted: Those bastards! then taken a long lunch on the company and hurried defiantly back to work. Most likely Roland in all his defective elegance had already done precisely that. Call him Abel. His only mistake, which of course Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer tacitly encouraged, was to flatter himself that he truly belonged to the circle. Ellen was a cipher, and Yancy a drudge. I’ll give them no space in this book. As for John, he studied his own interests well, but the motives of others offered him small relevance. (One result of this thinking was that he grew surprised, even infuriated, by actions of others which he had not foreseen and which, therefore, might appear to him as betrayals.) At any rate, if he performed his share, and more than his share, then the cup of success must inevitably fill, no matter how he judged others, or others him. In Irene, of course, he’d won a true companion, who’d drink of that cup with him as it brimmed, and who accordingly must grow happier and happier. Meanwhile he worked, and went out with his friends, most of whom, like Roland, had not yet married; it was to be expected that they sometimes flirted, and when they did, he would, too, which was why Hank now chanced upon him holding a woman’s hand.

Tyler’s first thought was to drive on, in order to avoid embarassing his brother. But then he wondered whether John had seen him, or recognized his car; John had an eye for cars, especially cars which had once belonged to John. Unhappy and ashamed, he rolled slowly to a parking spot half a block ahead, locked the doors, and walked back to the apartmentfront, while rain ran down the back of his neck.

Apparently he had done exactly the wrong thing, because John hadn’t seen him. He was now passionately kissing the girl, who of course opened her eyes and, spying Tyler over the back of John’s head, panicked and pulled away. John turned around quickly.

Hello, John, said Tyler.

He knew the girl. Her name was Celia Caro, and she worked for an insurance company in the financial district. John had introduced her once at a miserable party which Tyler had regretted going to. She and Irene had met several times.

So you’re snooping again, said John bitterly.

Tyler dealt with this as he had dealt with the black man’s comment about Irene’s race, by deflecting it. In the years he’d devoted to his job, which did indeed involve snooping, he had learned that this was the best way to prevent truculence from gaining its desired stranglehold. — I just happened to be driving by and I saw you, he said. Wondered if I could buy you a drink. You’re welcome also, Celia.

I have an interview early in the morning, said Celia awkwardly.

All right. How about you, John?

You know what? said Celia. I’m standing here in the rain, and I’m not getting any drier. I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Hank. Goodnight, John.

Goodnight, said Tyler.

John said nothing.

They walked silently around the corner, and John said: Here’s a good place. This Branden’s.

Ah, thought Tyler to himself. So he comes here often.

And how was dinner? said John when they were seated at the bar of this rather ferny and overpriced watering hole — a John kind of place, thought Tyler. Slow, silent, massive fanblades turned like windmills.

Very good, thanks. Sorry you couldn’t make it.

Sorry I couldn’t make it, agreed John with what his brother suspected of being sarcasm, gulping half a Scotch rather savagely. I was wrapping up the Peterson case. You read about it in the papers?

No.

Oh, well, forget it. Somebody got terminated and somebody else is suing.

You’re suing?

Exactly, said John proudly. Tyler relaxed. He had begun to make his brother happy.

But that narrow, immensely powerful mind kept whirring in its narrow track, like a snowmobile circling round and round at rope’s end, grinding deeper into the powder until it finally grazed hardfrozen earth, and John said: Was it to spy on me that you came here? That’s all you do day and night, your filthy spying.

John, I didn’t know you were with Celia, and until now I didn’t know where Celia lives.

And you’re going to fuck me around with Irene, aren’t you? You’re going to tell Irene, aren’t you?

No, I’m not, said Tyler easily. He was so used to humoring people that promising the moon came readily to him. It was a reflex. He did not have to decide whether or not to be bound by that promise until later. Besides, he could not think of any earthly or celestial reason why he ought to make Irene sadder.

Slowly the light faded from those glaring eyes. John trusted him. Tyler finished his beer. He wanted to do something with his hands, so he signalled the bartender for another.

Have you called Mom lately? said John.

Tyler knew that John hoped to catch him out. As a matter of fact, he had telephoned their mother just yesterday, but John would be annoyed not to have that to reproach him for.

Not lately, he lied. How’s she doing?

Fine, said John, stirring his drink. Then he said: I talked to Mom for about five minutes at lunchtime. She’s having chest pains again. She said that you called yesterday, he added triumphantly. I guess you just can’t be straight with people even if it’s more trouble to be crooked.

Oh yes, said Tyler. That’s right. I did call her yesterday. But she didn’t mention her chest pains to me.

Are you saying her condition isn’t serious?

No. I guess I’m saying that she tells you more than she tells me.

(This was another lie. His mother had informed him of her chest pains, but he wanted to flatter John.)

You’re crooked through and through, said John happily.

Tyler was cold and tired rather than angry. He did not want to see his brother again for a long while. But he had been trying sincerely to please him, and he had succeeded. He felt in some strange way needed, hence worthwhile. Then there was Irene. He couldn’t forget Irene.

Rows and rows of inverted glasses crouched upon the shelf before his eyes. They were precious crystalline fruits filled with the light of emptiness. His eyes began to hurt when he stared at them, so he gazed around the barroom and was pleased to discover between the notes of loud but muffled music worshipful young girls and boys, gracious old baldies, starry-eyed men who longed to get into the pants of the women they were buying drinks for, loud-talking boyfriends explaining and explaining, girls out together, shaking their heads at each others’ wit. A drunken blonde was bowing and clutching her crotch as she waited for the women’s room.

And how’s everything at work? he asked, wondering if he were repeating himself.

Fine. We just got a six-million-dollar case but I don’t know how deeply they’ll let me sink my teeth into it. Oh, I guess I told you about it already. The Peterson case…

(So he’s a little drunk, Tyler thought.)

And how’s the home life?

Couldn’t be happier, said John, drumming his fingers on the edge of his beer glass. — Irene’s a great gal, terrific gal.

They sat there awhile, and John’s throat jerked, and John said: How about you?

Lucrative.

That’s a switch. You ought to quit while you’re ahead. Get a decent tie; find a respectable job…

Tyler ducked his head. — Where’s the best place for ties?

Gaspard’s, said John, his face lighting up again. That’s a hell of a classy place. Even that clod Roland knows enough to go there. But — well, sometime I’ll have to take you to Donatello’s. That’s my little secret. You wouldn’t know a decent tie if it strangled you. But I can run you over there sometime. Actually, Irene has got a pretty good eye. Maybe she—

I guess silk is the thing, Tyler said, a little uncertainly.

At Donatello’s you don’t even wipe your ass with less than a hundred percent handmade silk. But it’s not cheap, I’ll tell you that. Last Christmas Irene bought me one of their Fog City Paisleys, a unique print actually, and though it almost killed me I made her take it right back. Irene was not happy. It one of those nights. But the next day my bonus came, and that’s the tie I’m wearing right now.

Pretty fancy, John. You’re lucky you married someone with such good taste.

She knows what I like, said John complacently. Well, I guess I should be getting back. Celia can run me home.

Okay. Let me just get this barkeep’s attention.

Forget it, said John. I’ve got a running tab here. No, I mean it. You took Irene out tonight. Don’t think I don’t keep track of those things.

Tyler went to a pay phone and checked his messages. Pressing the three digits of his secret code (which he knew from professional experience would not be much of a secret to anyone who cared), he heard the tape rustling backward, and for a moment was certain that Irene was calling him, or maybe Brady, but it was only some unfaithful husband he’d nailed who was threatening pathetically and drunkenly to sue him for invasion of privacy. Tyler had the geek’s home number. Composing himself to be a mouthpiece of friendly warnings, he telephoned, but got no answer, although it was already after eleven. The mistress had left town in a hurry, and he didn’t think that the man would be staying at her place anymore. Who knows; could he have shot himself? He was a gun collector. That would be convenient, Tyler thought. I hate dealing with these assholes, in or out of court.

He drove down to Larkin Street, photographed a drug deal for his friend Robert the cop, rolled past the parking garage and noted no traffic in or out, an observation which would not thrill Brady (although Brady nonetheless kept a notebook filled with such tabulations as Mamie [from Atlanta], age 28, on 8th betw 38th and 42nd; $20 + $5 for drinks—30 min) but just the same Tyler recorded No traffic in his surveillance report; then, via North Beach (where not far from the sequinlike neon beads of Adam & Eve a crowd of bus-attenders stood outside City Lights, ignoring the delicious books in the window, indifferent even to the black and white paperbacks of Howl stacked up in pyramidal altars to the 1960s), he returned to Union and saw John’s car still parked in front of Celia’s. If he had to guess, they were quarelling, not smooching, because his visit would have left Celia defensive and John simply mean. Not that it was his business. Why didn’t he go back to North Beach? Sometimes he stopped at City Lights to buy an issue of Industrial Photography Quarterly, which proferred tips on espionage, displayed photographs of pistols he couldn’t afford to own, and in its back pages sometimes consented to carry mail-order ads for locator fluid, not the good stuff that he bought with his special I.D. at the film department of Adolph Gasser’s, but stuff that was good enough to cut the good stuff with. He thought about calling Irene just to hear her voice, but that would be wrong. Sometimes zeal accomplishes the opposite of its objectives. He started toward City Lights, but by the time he’d emerged from the Broadway tunnel, whose sparkling yellow walls were that night silhouetted by hooting roller bladers, he’d changed his mind. Back to Polk Street — he remembered when Johnny Love’s was Lord Jim’s, actually not so long ago now. It had begun to drizzle, so that the car ahead was smeared and glowing. Crawling reflections made his own vehicle bubble inside like an aquarium. Hoping that John would be good to Irene when he did come home, he cruised down to the Mission, yawned, and checked out Capp Street where a weary old junkie was breaking in a spring chicken, explaining: Put your leg out, way out, and bend at the knee — that’s right! God, my feet hurt. You know how your toenails hurt when they’re too long? And I hate all this traffic. It’s just too hectic. It’s not calm. Now bend your back leg, too; okay, honey, straighten it out, lock it and wiggle your butt; yeah, show ’em some ass just like the Queen said… — but then the two whores saw Tyler’s slow-cruising detectivemobile and he had no more reason to linger, so he stopped at a gas station for unleaded and a stick of cheese-flavored sausage, admired the grand old curvy-cylindered-windowed Victorian houses on South Van Ness, swam past the parking garage, from which two whores were just then emerging (he photographed them and scribbled something down in the DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES line of his surveillance report), wound his way back to Union Street and found John’s car gone. Grimly grinning, he said to himself: Am I my brother’s keeper?

The following morning, when John arrived at the office (in the corner of his eye Irene’s car just beginning to pull away), a new doorman was there. They gazed at one another’s uniforms and passed without speaking; John had never even known the old doorman’s name. In the elevator beside him rode his plump secretary, Joy, whose spectacles goggled at the world from an unbeautiful but serene round face. She’d cut her hair short, and was wearing a blue dress. — Hi, Mr. Tyler, how are you? she began breathlessly; I’m a little harried but I did call him today…

Who are you talking about? said John. Say, is my tie straight?

Mr. Brady, she said.

What did he say, Joy?

He got the deposition, and he said to tell you that he’s very satisfied.

John smiled.

The elevator arrived. Pink-cheeked Joy scurried into her little cubicle, of which a cassette player and tapes took up a quarter, and John, passing by, glimpsed the baby seat for when she worked on weekends, the filing cabinet and the two desks crammed end to end. — Good morning, Mr. Rapp, he said.

Morning, John. Congratulations on getting Brady.

Oh, thanks, Mr. Rapp, laughed John, blushing with happiness.

Joy peeked out of her lair, her smile expressing full unity with Mr. Rapp’s mazel tov.

The amber button buzzed on John’s desk phone. Lifting the receiver, he depressed that unnerving crystal of luminescence, and said: What is it now, Joy?

Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer would like to bring you to a private lunch, said Joy’s voice, a little arch at the knowledge that it bore imperious tidings.

When — today?

Mmm hmmm.

What time?

One-thirty.

Okay. Thank you, Joy, he said, hanging up. He made a note on his memo pad: Call Mom tonight. — He e-mailed a memo to Joy to do a search for Brady, Jonas A. on both the LEXIS and NEXIS databases and bring him hard copy. Returning to the Veblen brief he’d been preparing since yesterday, he pecked in three cunning additions to the boilerplate; he thought they’d lure an approving smile to Mr. Rapp’s face if he read them, which Mr. Singer certainly wouldn’t. At one-twenty-five his screen chimed. His stomach ached, and his fingers were feeling sweaty. He went to the men’s room, washed his face, and adjusted his tie.

Boccaccio’s, John? said Mr. Rapp, with a smile that was not the approving one; it was the smile that meant nothing. He had left his blazer in the inner office, as was his custom when not receiving clients, and his starched shirt was as white as the solid left behind after sodium has consummated its marriage with ethanol.

Sure, said John. I’m ready.

He felt that he could not eat anything. He did not know whether he was about to be rewarded or punished, and that uncertainty made him nauseous.

At Boccaccio’s, which was right across the street from a women’s shoe store swarming with golden high heels, black high heels, sandals with double or triple straps, sexy boots, silver snakeskin affairs that came up to the knee, they sat at one of those uncomfortably “intimate” tables so beloved by those office dictators whose hobby it is to gaze into one’s anxious face. He saw that the full partners were planning to order wine. John ordered a beer just to show them that he was his own man. They nodded indulgently.

What do we live for? declaimed old Mr. Singer in his best populist voice. Some fellows live for women. I live to eat. I’m not fat or anything, but I enjoy my food. Barton Rapp, now, there’s a man who lives for his operas and his wine rack.

(John had heard all this before.)

Mr. Singer leaned forward and fixed John with his eyes. — And what do you live for, John? he said.

I live for my work, replied John, trying not to be irritated.

Mr. Rapp frowned and waved a finger. — Not good enough! he said. Everybody works to live, but very few of us — not even full partners, John — can say the reverse. What about your wife? Don’t you live for her?

Let’s leave Irene out of this, said John as his wife’s unlovely face hung before him.

Have it your way, John, said Mr. Singer. Let’s put it like this: What are you about?

John gulped at his beer and tried to smile.

Mr. Rapp tapped his wineglass with a musical sound. — When you ask who a person is, what he’s about, you’re really asking what his fetishes are.

I don’t have any fetishes, Mr. Rapp, just habits. Are you dissatisfied with my work?

A tough guy, purred Mr. Rapp with a loopy smile. We like that. On the contrary, John. You’re doing an excellent job.

I’ve got to take a leak, muttered Mr. Singer to himself. He got up and strode toward the back, his round bald dome accompanying him like something sacred — talk about the Music of the Spheres!

What are your fetishes, Mr. Rapp? said John in his most level voice.

You’ve got guts, John. There’s a fine line between guts and impertinence, and you’ve never crossed that line.

Thanks, Mr. Rapp, said John.

Are you ready to order, gentlemen? said the waiter.

I’m going to have the warm spinach salad with chevre, said Mr. Rapp. And I believe that’s all I’ll have. John?

I’ll take the same, said John. And another beer.

John, John, go ahead and eat! Don’t let me stop you! I’m an old man.

All right, said John. How’s the salmon today?

Excellent, sir, said the waiter. It’s probably the best thing on the menu. That garlic aioli is to die for.

Fine, said John. I’ll take the salmon.

I’d like the terra cotta chicken, please, said Mr. Singer, now returned. And a small green salad. Do you understand that concept? A small green salad.

Very good, sir, said the waiter. More wine?

I understand you’re going to be a father, said Mr. Rapp, blinking sentimentally. Congratulations, John. No, thank you. We have enough for now.

Thanks for the congratulations, said John, wondering who had told him about Irene’s mistake. — It may be another false alarm. By the way, Mr. Budrys hasn’t gotten back to me yet with the amended tobacco brief.

Oh, he hasn’t? Well, you know we’re getting pretty close to deadline on that one, John.

I’ll lean on him, said John.

Well said! cried Mr. Rapp, clapping his hands. John, you’ll go far.

But you never did tell us what you’re about, said Mr. Singer. Or did I miss something when I peed?

I’m about nothing, said John. Exactly nothing.

Spoken like a full partner, chortled Mr. Singer.

We think you have the makings of a full partner, echoed Mr. Rapp.

Well, thanks, said John awkwardly.

That afternoon there had been no message from Brady and no other work, so Tyler went back to Larkin Street to observe yellow RX-7s and white Chevys emerge from the Queen’s parking garage, fouling the air. He watched them for a long time, writing their license plate numbers in the lines of his youngest surveillance report, emptily perceiving rather than learning, of which he was tired. The grin of light between a car’s belly and the shiny concrete floor widened as the little wheeled monster rolled closer. The buzzer sounded twice. Across the street, a dirty foot hung out of a dirty sleeping bag; a longbearded man sat upon the sidewalk, gazing pupillessly at another sleeper whose red underwear made his buttocks one with the square tail-lit backsides of cars. The buzzer sounded again. The car came out, its brilliant yellow eyes suddenly impoverished by the day. After that, a shaveskulled guy strung chain across the darkest tunnel. Watching the car go, Tyler spied a black-and-white crawling lazily by, bearing to the police station a silent young man with his chin on two fingers which hid behind the goatish beard; Tyler had seen him selling drugs sometimes on Jones Street. The police car went around the corner and out of the life of Tyler, who continued to sit in the yellow zone, dreaming of nothing with an almost Leninist confidence. Finally he cruised up to Union Square, rolled down his window, inched along in traffic (which, unlike most people, he loved; it gave him time to see things), and studied the giant palenesses of black and white glamor girls in the store windows. He counted the stripes on the awnings of hotdog stands. If he could simply get a name for the Queen, he’d be able to run an extended trace; then he’d surely snatch her social security number, her statewide criminal record, and some address, however worthless. He loved extended traces. It was a white, foggy afternoon crawling with obsequious light, which must have been why the darkness between buildings refused to be worshiped, let alone lovingly touched. He took a spin across the Bay Bridge. Behind him, the trunks of skyscrapers faded into fog regularly notched with greyness where the windows were. Irene had mentioned seeing plum blossoms in Berkeley or Oakland. He drove around for an hour or two, but didn’t spy any. At dusk he returned to San Francisco. The line at the toll booth wasn’t too bad; he struck the Mission in twenty minutes. He wondered what Brady was doing. Under what pretext could he call the man up? No news was not good news in Tyler’s occupation. Thanks to credit card debt, his savings account now trembled not far above zero — absolute zero, when every last financial molecule falls still and silent — but he didn’t want to check his answering machine, which surely bore no offerings of work. Feeling blue, he parked in an alley just off Sixteenth and Valencia, zipped his jacket over the bulge in his left armpit, and wandered into one of those little cafés with excellent coffee and bad art on the walls. A name, a name, and then she’d become real. Maybe the bail bondsmen would know her — but he had to get a name first. There being no reason not to finish this wasted day as he’d begun it, he ordered a bottle of mineral water and sat himself down at a corner table to read the Guardian ads: Women Egg Donors Needed! — Redundant gender description, thought Tyler. The other patrons hunched at their own tables, reading.

On the bulletin board it said Lesbian Housemate Wanted and SELF-DEFENSE FOR WOMEN and Piano Lessons and Hookers, Watch Out for These Men! Tyler read this last. It was a warning about the Capp Street murders. Two prostitutes from that business district had wound up in dumpsters down by China Basin. A third had gotten away and given a description of the killers.

Well, he thought to himself, let’s go take a stroll down Capp Street.

It was a cool spring night in the Mission. Beyond his coffeehouse, where two girls were snuggling as their fingers pecked out destinations on the electronic highway, two men chatted yawning like sentinels, their hands on their heads, and past them an old lady was panhandling. The old lady had tears in her eyes, and she kept shifting her aching feet. Tyler suddenly thought to himself: She knows as I will never know how hard a sidewalk can be. — She asked Tyler for fifty cents, so on principle he gave her a quarter. A minute later she wandered into the coffeeshop, then back out again as he stood irresolute on that corner, wondering how he could drum up more business; and with no recognition she asked him for fifty cents. He’d asked her name, which was Diane, so he knew to say: Why, hello, Diane! and she jerked awake for a moment, then stumbled away.

His friend Roberta the stripper just happened to be passing with her shiny new bike, and cried out: Hi, Henry! I saw that! That old woman must be in Nirvana.

He knew that this was a sarcastic and even hateful remark because Roberta hated Buddhism. — No, he said earnestly. She’s desperate, so she can’t have reached Nirvana yet.

Hey, I’ve gotta go meet my friend Mollie up on Haight Street, said Roberta. You wanna come have coffee with us?

Oh, that’s really nice of you, Roberta. I just don’t have any energy tonight. — He was longing for Irene.

Are you depressed? I’m depressed. My boyfriend really used me. I fucked him because he was in a rock band but after that I fell in love. I would have married him. But then he turned out to be quite the sonofabitch.

I’m sorry to hear that, Roberta, he said.

You want to buy me coffee? Actually you don’t have to buy me anything. I have money.

You’re a nice person, Roberta, he said. I’m sorry you’re having a rough time.

So, how’s the job? You track down any interesting people? Hey, you can stay at my place if you want. You can sleep on the living room couch. My roommates are pretty cool about it.

Roberta, do you know anything about the Queen of the Whores?

I’m just a stripper, not a whore, remember? I mean, I believe in the sacred Whore-Goddess. Maybe that’s what the Queen is. You sure you don’t want to stay over?

I wish I could, but I have scabies, he lied.

Oh. Oh! And I’ve been holding your hand! Let me go wash my hands! Nothing personal, but I don’t want to get that again.

After Roberta left him he entered a clean and pleasant secondhand bookshop which played music from the time when he was young. He browsed through The Patriarchy at Work and Difficult Women and Sisterhood Is Global. There was a cat on the sofa. The pretty Asian girl who was shelving books smiled at him. He wanted to sit down and read for a while. Instead he bought a used Steinbeck paperback and strode out, past the singing panhandlers, the bright lavender hotel doorways that said VACANCY. He saw a tattoo parlor that he didn’t remember from before. — Of course he didn’t get down to the Mission that much. The Tenderloin was more his area. — At a phone booth he called his answering machine, discovering no message from Brady, who perhaps was busy enjoying the carnal knowledge of some cottonwood tree. Down on Mission Street the tall hooded bullies were yelling and the hard girls were bending over the sidewalk, saying: You dropped a rock. Where’s my rock, bitch? — Gonna fix that motherfucker up, save me a little bit, he heard a pimp say. He returned to the subway station’s cold night sun of radiating tiles, stood by the pay phone trying not to call Irene, picked up the phone, put it down, took a quarter out of his pocket, thought some more, and then walked away with the quarter in his hand. Capp Street was empty — strange, since the beginning of the month was long past, and the whores’ welfare checks long spent; maybe they were scared of the Capp Street killers. On the other hand, this evening had hardly progressed to lateness. Maybe it wasn’t strange at all. He strolled to Seventeenth and Eighteenth; still not seeing any oral or vaginal workers, he turned around and at once somebody began to follow him from the darkness just beyond Eighteenth, dodging between the mountainously laden garbage cans. He felt a prickle of fear. — I know the Queen, Tyler called over his shoulder. — The footsteps stopped. — Well, he thought to himself, what’s in a name?

In a fast food restaurant he bought french fries and then entered the men’s room to count his wallet. Two hundred and three dollars. Enough.

Can you give me a room without too much crack smoke? he asked at the Rama Hotel. Last time there was crack smoke coming in through the wall and I didn’t get much sleep.

That must have been some other hotel, said the manager, bored and angry.

Okay, said Tyler. I believe you. I’m sure the room will be great.

He went up to his room, which cost twenty dollars plus a five dollar key deposit, and sat there for a while. Then he wrote a letter to the Queen of the Whores, politely requesting a meeting. He copied it out four times. Each letter he put in its own envelope addressed to the Queen of the Whores. Before sealing these literary efforts, he took four eyedroppered vials from his pocket. Each one contained a differently keyed locator fluid. Marking them separately with that treacherous spoor, he licked the envelopes shut. He left one on top of the dresser. The second he took down the hall to the bathroom and hid in the toilet tank, taping it underneath the lid, right on top of somebody’s heroin stash. The third and fourth he kept with him. Descending the stairs, he swung the grating open, and peered out into the night. Mission Street was getting worse every month. Two tall men waiting outside snarled at him. His hand was in his jacket pocket where the pistol was. Perhaps they saw the lack of fear in his face (although he actually did fear them), or perhaps they meant no harm, for they let him through. He walked back along the night sidewalk where homeless men rattled their shopping carts, got into his car, drove across town to the Queen’s parking garage in order to add another stultifying line to his surveillance report, dropped the car off there so that no one would smash the windshield, slid the third letter to the Queen under the grating by the third floor, took the bus back, and got off at Sixteenth and Mission where the subway station was now a crack cocaine bazaar. He saw two hulking pairs of shoulders enter the gratinged street door of the Rama, and strode quickly to grab it so that the manager would not have to buzz him in, but the closer he got, the higher loomed those shoulders, and suddenly he was apprehensive again. He wondered whether he might be getting ill. Once his brother had hired him — probably out of pity — to do a little investigative work on a toxic dumping case which was of interest to a certain realty corporation, and late one night as Tyler approached the factory warehouse he’d suddenly been almost overcome by a panic which seemed causeless. He went home, lay down, and was sick for a week. This performance, needless to say, did not endear him to John’s firm. Pacing half a block up and half a block back to give those shoulders time to disappear, he rang the buzzer at the Rama. When the hideous cawing of unlocking sounded, he pulled the grating open. A whore and a pimp stood in the hallway. — It’s not enough, the whore was whining. — You argue with me, you’ll go back in the penitentiary, said the pimp. — Their mouths kissed the long yellow crack-flame as Tyler said excuse me and passed up the stinking stairs to the second grating, whose button he had to lean on for a long time before the manager buzzed him in.

What room? said the manager, who obviously didn’t remember him.

I kept my key, thanks.

Don’t talk smart to me, filth, said the manager. What room?

The one with no crack smoke, said Tyler, turning his back on the manager and going up the second flight of stairs to the hall where his room was. A door opened and a man clothed only in tattoos of angry demons leaned out and spat on the carpet. Out of his side-vision Tyler glimpsed a naked old woman straining to pull a dildo out of her ass. Tyler walked down the corridor to the bathroom and looked inside the toilet tank. The letter and the baggie of heroin were both gone. From his pocket he withdrew the fourth and final envelope and set it openly on top of the toilet tank.

In his room the first envelope was still there. But somebody had painted on the bottom drawer of the half-ruined dresser an image of a naked woman whose hair was charred pipe resin or a similar black substance and whose lips were lipstick. Between her breasts ran these lines:

IS WOUND BUT ONCE

No man has the power

to tell where he will

stop at a late

or early hour.

To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed

To lose one’s health is more

To lose one’s soul is such a loss

To lose one’s Queen is all.

He saw another lipstick stain where someone had stood on the bed and kissed the wall.

He went down the corridor to the bathroom, and on his return the night breeze felt good so he approached the street window and saw a whore creeping up the fire escape. She put her finger to her lips when she saw him. He nodded and waited.

I’m so cold, the woman whispered when she reached him. Please please please. I’m alone and I got a room already in the Westman Hotel.

What’s your name?

Barbara.

He looked at her for a long time. — Hey, he said softly, I remember you when your name was Shorty.

I remember you, too. You were living in the Krishna then.

Yes I was! laughed Tyler. I was between jobs then. And you—

Yes. Hey! Guess what! I kicked! I’m not shooting up anymore!

That’s great, he said, half believing her.

So, please…

Maybe later, when I have some money, he said smoothly.

You don’t even have two dollars? I’m hungry.

Here’s a buck, he said. Listen, Barbara—

Aw, what the hell. You can call me Shorty. We go back a ways, don’t we?

OK, Shorty. I need to meet the Queen. Do you know how I can do that?

The Queen! What do you want to meet her for? What’s she got that I ain’t got?

Somebody’s paying me, he said.

Oh, that’s different. You gotta do what you gotta do. Well, I’m in business for myself, so I don’t really know her. But the other girls say she lives underground, you know like in the sewers or under the subway or something, always moving around, but always in the dark like some bug that rules the bug colony. I never went looking for her. They say if she wants you, she’ll find you, but if you go poking your nose in her business she’ll fuck you up. Like seriously fuck you up. But you didn’t hear anything from me, right?

So she’s mean, Shorty?

Talk about mean! That girl is one hundred percent bitch. You look for her, you watch your ass, Okay? ’Cause you’ve been good to me.

Thanks, Shorty, he said, squeezing her in his arms.

That night Tyler dreamed of an extermination machine in the shape of a cubical steel face within which the mouth was a bladed trapezoid. The condemned marched into the mouth one by one. They bowed their heads, reminding him of the way that everyone gazed at his or her tapping shoes at the V.D. clinic. (Once he’d met a client there. Another time he’d been a patient there.) The blades macerated them. He dreamed of this all night, sometimes managing to struggle awake, but it was as though the architect of this machine kept dragging him back down to gaze upon it. At dawn he was sad and anxious. It was just light enough for him to see bloodstains and squashed bugs on the walls. He itched all over. He got up, pissed in the sink, and dressed. Shorty was staying in room number 302. He took the first letter to the Queen and slid it under her door. Then he returned to his room and lay down, trying to sleep and failing. There was piss shining on the vinyl runners of the stairs when he finally went out. A man and a woman were sitting in that estimable liquid. The woman said to her companion: I’ll do it soon’s he gets out of the hall. — You talking about me? Tyler inquired politely, zipping up his fly. — I’m just saying this hall is none too big, the woman said. — Tyler nodded at her. He saw that the man had fallen asleep.

He rang the buzzer on the manager’s hatchway and got his five dollars back for the key.

Hey, if you don’t need that money, you can give it to me, a whore in the hallway said.

And you can do the same for me, he said.

Well, the whore said, scratching her scars, I might sometime do you that favor.

I’ll just hold my breath, honey, said Tyler, swinging open the top grating.

Be careful out there, said the night janitor.

He descended the final stairs, peered through the street grating to make sure that nobody was lurking, and went out. A sad black whore, hooded against the rising sun, was walking slowly toward the bus stop. She gazed back at him longingly. He saluted her, mouthed the word Queen, and went on, passing a parking garage whose cage gaped empty just inside the doorway. There was nobody inside the ticket taker’s heavily glassed booth, which was set reclusively back in the darkness.

No way the Queen’s in a parking garage, Tyler said to himself. It’s got to be just a goddamned letter drop.

Hallelujah, he thought then. I actually believe in the Queen.

He walked and walked, scratching. On South Van Ness near Twenty Second a black-and-white slowly came to a stop, double-parked, and from its two mouths expectorated two cops the darkness of whose uniforms seemed to keep the last remnants of the night. He didn’t recognize either of them. They mounted the painted steps of an unpainted Victorian and rang the doorbell. Their hands were on their holsters.

He thought: I’d better call Mom today and see if she’s had any chest pains. I should call Detective Hernandez in Vice and ask him if he’s heard of the Queen. I should call Brady and ask him for another advance. I should call John and ask if he thinks Mom needs another doctor. I should call Irene.

He took the bus to the Queen’s parking garage, drove home and took a shower. After that, he checked his messages. His throat felt scratchy. Brady hadn’t phoned, but somebody named Marya whose ex-husband owed her child support wanted him to help her track the absconder into the jaws of justice, and his half-friend Roger was in town, his mother had called, John hadn’t called, a possible warehouse surveillance case danced on his tongue; Helena from Seattle, who’d never let him kiss her breasts, wondered aloud how he was doing; the Detective Institute invited him, for a forgivably small stipend, to repeat the seminar on drug abuse recognition; and the landlord was coming to repair the running toilet sometime around noon, which meant closer to three or four. Junk mail faxes crept across the carpet. Tyler ate a freckled banana for breakfast and made himself coffee. Resting his clipboard on his knee, he began to pad his surveillance report, adding line after line of spurious whores going in and spurious cars going out. That would keep Brady happy. He used up three extra forms that way. Then he tuned his television set to channel seven and clicked the remote three times to find out where his missives to the Queen had travelled. He saw a blue dot, a red dot, a white dot, and a dark grey dot. The blue dot and the dark grey dot were still at Sixteenth and Mission. The red dot was at the parking garage at Larkin Street where he had left it. The white dot, which represented the letter he’d slipped under Shorty’s door, had also moved to the parking garage.

Just a goddamned letter drop, he repeated to himself.

Two months earlier, Irene had become certain that she was pregnant.

Sacramento had received a wet spring. Water still shone upon the black earth, and the buttercups, dandelions and mustard flowers were a sunny yellow in the ditches. On that Sunday afternoon hardly any traffic dared to slow their progress on Interstate 80 West, which thickened the pleasure John already felt in having done his duty by spending Saturday and Saturday night with his lonely mother, whose house was crammed with paperbacks: The Algerine Captive, Growth of the Soil, The Last Temptation of Christ, Mary Webb’s The Golden Arrow; his mother adored Irene, but admonished her, as John did, to lose weight and get a job. Irene tried to smile and respect her because she wouldn’t consider herself a good person if she quarreled with her mother-in-law. Having told her once again that she was too fat, John’s mother served her an immense helping of pork chops and mashed potato with butter, becoming cross when Irene was too full to eat seconds. She admired John’s new tie and wanted to hear all about the Peterson case. John told her, in considerably more detail than he had ever told Irene. Irene, half-listening to her husband and gazing into the old woman’s face, wondered whether she were genuinely interested in her son’s life, simply because it was her son’s, or whether her love allowed her to feign interest. Either way, she was an excellent listener. (Under the table, Mugsy the dog nuzzled Irene’s thigh.) John seemed happier and more relaxed than he’d been in weeks. He asked his mother for advice, which he never did with Irene; he smiled and laughed… Deeply ashamed, Irene promised herself in future to express more interest in her husband’s affairs. When dinner was finished, she asked John’s mother what she was reading now.

I’m rereading Dostoyevsky, said the old lady. There’s one writer who’s truly ageless. I’d really forgotten how good he was.

You make it sound so easy, to read all those books! said Irene in her best admiring voice.

Well, of course English is not your native language, Irene (and Irene, smiling graciously, heard some monster in the old lady’s heart crying: You goddamned little Chink!). No one expects you to read Dostoyevsky.

If I were to read just one, which would you recommend?

You heard what Mom said, John told her, a patina of irritation now overlying the happy goldenness of his voice. Why would you bother?

Irene was determined at all costs to be polite to her mother-in-law, but she saw no reason to allow her husband’s condescension to pass unchallenged. — How many books by Dostoyevsky have you read? she asked.

What’s that got to do with anything? Is this some kind of contest?

If it is, replied Irene, continuing to play the good girl, I’m sure that Mom has won. And I know I’ve lost, because I never read anything by Dostoyevsky.

Mrs. Tyler smiled benignly. — Just reading for the sake of saying you’ve done it is cheating. You have to enjoy it. John of course has read everything Dostoyevsky ever wrote. I saw to that.

Is that true, John?

Look, Irene. Can’t we just leave me out of this?

Does he write fiction or nonfiction, Mom?

Oh, my poor dear Irene, said Mrs. Tyler.

And which one have you enjoyed the most?

How could that possibly matter to you? said her husband.

Noting Irene’s bitter grimace, Mrs. Tyler quickly replied: Well, dear, I’d have to say The Possessed, although it’s frightfully sad. It reveals in such depth the stupidity of revolution. I wish that all those terrorists in the Middle East were required to read it.

Maybe they’ve read it already, said John, still sour.

Can I borrow your copy, Mom? said Irene. I promise I’ll read it before we visit you again.

Oh, you’re such a sweet girl, Irene, said John’s mother, starting to clear away the dishes. Irene leaped up to help her.

Sit down with me, Mom, said John. Irene can do it.

Please, Mom, keep John company, cried Irene quickly. John’s right! And he doesn’t get to see you as often as he’d like.

How’s your blood pressure? she heard John say as she came back in for the glass bowl.

Oh, not so good, not so bad. No chest pains today.

John gazed into his mother’s face with a loving, worried look. Irene felt so lonely that she almost screamed.

And how’s your brother? she heard her mother-in-law say.

Unshaven and drinking as usual, said John. (Her wrists deep in soapsuds, she visualized his face slamming shut as it always did when Henry was mentioned.)

There’s something I want you to say to him, John. I don’t want it coming from me, because then he won’t listen. But I know he listens to you. He respects you, John. He loves you.

Turning off the faucet, she heard John’s silence. She heard Mugsy’s tail rhythmically lashing the table-leg. Someone must be scratching Mugsy’s belly the way she liked. Probably John was doing it. John loved Mugsy.

I want you to tell him to find another girlfriend, her mother-in-law was saying. At my age it’s not so important to be divorced. Of course I would have preferred it if Daddy hadn’t left us, but it seems that so many of my schoolgirl friends are widows already. Henry, though, still has half his life ahead of him. Well, almost half, I guess I should say…

I’ll tell him, Mom, John said tonelessly.

Irene always had difficulty finding where the spatulas were kept, and she did not want to interrupt the conversation, so she opened drawers one after the other, discovering silverware like grey claw-bones, corkscrews, receipts, medical insurance forms, everything in a clutter. In her own mother’s house everything was just so. Even the tapered ends of the chopsticks had to point in the same direction. Her mother was almost excessively clean, although she paled in comparison to her aunt, who kept everyone’s shoes in plastic bags in the closet at night so that they wouldn’t gather dust. Under the dish drainer, Irene suddenly saw one of her mother-in-law’s grey hairs, and sponged it away in disgust.

I had the strangest dream about Henry last night, Mrs. Tyler was saying as Irene finished drying her hands and came noiselessly back to the table. — Thank you so much, Irene. You’re a goodhearted girl.

Mom, I’m sorry I couldn’t find the spatula. I put the potatoes away in the fridge in that big bowl.

Never mind, never mind. Do you really want to read Dostoyevsky?

Of course, Mom. What was your dream?

My what? Oh, I was just telling John that last night I had a little trouble getting to sleep. When you get to be my age, Irene, you’ll find that sleep doesn’t come without a struggle. Sometimes I think that’s why old people die. They just get so tired.

I’m sorry, Mom. When John and I go to church I’ll make sure we both pray for your health.

What was your dream, Mom? said John, bored.

Well, I dreamed that Henry had married a princess — a real princess, with a golden crown! Isn’t that fantastic? Oh, dear! And he looked so happy. I think that’s why I’ve been thinking about him all day. I would certainly love to see him remarried. Irene, you’re so close to Henry. Is there anyone special in his life?

Mrs. Tyler asked this question so blandly and straightforwardly that Irene did not at first sense any menace in it. John had without a doubt made several comments about this matter; but Irene was certain that Henry had never said anything about her to his mother.

No, Mom, she said when she realized that they were both waiting for her to say something. Not to my knowledge. But I sure wish he would find someone. Sometimes he seems so unhappy.

At once she was given to understand by the changed expressions of her two interlocutors that she had said more than she should, or at least more than they wanted to hear. It was acceptable for John or his mother to broach the subject of Henry’s sadness, but Irene would always remain an outsider; admitted to the family for a lifelong period of probation, it was not for her to make judgments on the emotions of others. Later, on that Sunday afternoon when she and John were driving back toward San Francisco’s foggy white and blue rectangles, she succeeded in forgetting the frown on her mother-in-law’s face. John was happy. He drove at five miles an hour above the speed limit, smiling all the way home. It was as if he’d received the gifts of the drug Ectasy, which (according to Henry, whom she loved to ask about drugs, none of which she’d ever tried) consists of a drowsy joy which thickens around your naked skin like fur; this is the transformation of every nerve ending in your skin into an excited clitoris; you knead a breast or buttock in your hand and cannot stop because your hand is having a million orgasms; you massage your sweetheart’s back for hours; when you close your eyes and wriggle your fingers you can still see them move; your teeth keep grinding until your jaws most pleasurably ache. Irene gazed at her husband, who drove on, and somehow his very joy overcame her with the familiar intractability of her position, as solid as her room in her parents’ house with its computer, TV, telephone, beads, animal posters, and stickers. Perhaps her cousin Suzy had the computer now. Irene had told her parents to give it to her. Suzy was still in school, and the computer had not yet fallen so far out of date.

They were on the Bay Bridge now, and looking over the edge Irene saw the dark steel ships upon the pale grey sea.

Her husband was still smiling faintly. Summoning her fortitude, Irene said: John, I think I’m pregnant.

Slowly, slowly his head turned toward her.

I guess you forgot your pill again, he said.

Yes, she said.

Well, he said, I hope you’re happy.

How about you? she said. Are you happy?

Mom will be thrilled, he said. Well, it’s a shock, Irene. I won’t deny that.

There was no traffic at the Civic Center exit. He turned right on Van Ness, where the traffic was also abnormally light, and was silent until they got to Chestnut Street, where as he turned he said: Who’s the father?

Mr. Tyler lived in Wyoming somewhere. Nobody had heard from him for years. California’s no-fault divorce laws entitled Tyler’s mother to an automatic half of common assets, but, having kept the house anyway, she let the cash go. John once took her to task about this, because he believed her to be motivated only by an apprehension of being thought greedy, when the simple truth was that like her other son she honestly did not care about money. Possibly Mr. Tyler would have settled some of it on her, had she asked, but by that time neither of them wanted the death of their marriage to drag on. Not long after John had begun to go steady with Irene, he’d proposed in one of his metallic jests that Hank employ the professional knowledge which he presumably possessed to go to Wyoming and seize their father’s assets, his reward to be a ten percent commission on anything collected. — I had an assault case involving that scenario, Hank mumbled. It happened right around the Loki Hotel. This woman made a nice little scar on this young girl’s forehead. You see, she was one of these women who… — John walked away, disgusted. And the notion of sending out a Viking raider on their father’s track had died a merited death, much to Mrs. Tyler’s relief. All that was important to her was seeing her sons, which was why every July they drove down to Monterey for a week, that town not being so far away that John couldn’t pop back into San Francisco if he were needed at the office. This year he warned that he could not guarantee his presence in July, because a new client had asked him to prepare some articles of incorporation which it seemed might have ripened exactly to the point of signature by July fifteenth, commencing the infant enterprise’s fiscal year, so he telephoned his mother to ask whether May were acceptable. That would be a pity, of course, Mrs. Tyler replied, because the beach would still be so chilly in that season, but John only laughed and said that Monterey was always cold and she never swam, so what was the difference? As for Hank, he knew how inconvenient it was for John to get away at all, so naturally he would rearrange his schedule as needed. It was a rare sunny day. Mrs. Tyler had installed herself in her hotel room for a nap. Irene lay sleeping on the sand, and her hands met at an apex beyond her head, there by the chair and the empty soda bottle. She had not yet reached that sluggish, langorous, trusting stage dwelt in by so many pregnant women, when the heavy belly makes every breath a burden, and independence must be traded for resignation, with or without hope, depending on temperament. Why not hope? Too late now to kill the fetus, if one ever thought of it. Why not assume the best of the father, and maybe even of the world? The only other course, aside from denial and distraction, would be a despair compounded by its own passivity. C’est sera sera, and so… The sun glittered on her watch. Beside her, John lay very still on his back. He was gold from head to toe. The breeze strained patiently inside his swim trunks, and the golden lion’s down on his arms seethed like seaweed in the waves. His chest barely moved. As Tyler watched, busily recording nonexistent license plate numbers in the surveillance report, Irene opened her eyes and looked up at the stubble on her husband’s chin. John seemed to feel her gaze, because his hand slowly rose to touch that very place. His eyes opened also, and he sat up. — I’m getting sunburned, he said. I think I’ll go in and put my shirt on. I need to shave, too.

As soon as her husband had gone, Irene’s eyes widened, and she turned her face slowly toward Tyler’s. Tyler’s heart began pounding.

And how’s the home life? Tyler was saying to his brother.

Great, said John, drumming his fingers on the edge of his beer glass. — Which reminds me. Mother, you’ll want to hear this. We’re expecting.

Oh, John! their mother cried. What fabulous news! When is Irene due?

September.

Where is Irene? their mother said.

She went to lie down.

Has she been having morning sickness?

I don’t think so, Mom, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. Irene’s not a complainer.

John, you are very lucky to have her.

Yeah, I know, Mom. How’s your blood pressure?

It was normal today. Henry, aren’t you going to congratulate your brother?

Congratulations, Tyler choked out.

I think this calls for champagne, boys, don’t you think?

Well, let’s wait until the baby’s born, said John sullenly.

They sat there, and Tyler said: How’s the Peterson case coming along?

We stopped that conviction dead, said John. Irene and I can count on a good bonus this year. So they’ve asked me to take the T-scam reclamation case. I haven’t refused, although it means I’ll be pretty busy for the rest of the year.

Well, you do have to think of your career, their mother said. You certainly couldn’t have refused. I’m sure that Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer are to be trusted. You’ve put up with so much for them. Oh, John, I’m so proud of you, and now you’re going to be a father, too! But you won’t leave Irene too much alone, will you? It’s difficult, a woman’s first time. I remember when I was pregnant with you, John, and then your father… Henry, you’ll have to look in on Irene even more often than you do. It’s a mercy that you and she are so fond of each other.

Tyler began very slowly to clean his spectacles. — I’ll certainly visit, he said, if I’m invited.

And what about you, Mom? said John smoothly. Irene loves you, too. I’m sure she’d appreciate it if you found time to help her.

I certainly shall. When Irene wakes up I must find out if she needs anything. Has she had a good appetite?

She’s going to eat me into the poorhouse, laughed John. Tyler thought it a brutal laugh.

The fog’s coming in again, Tyler said, gazing out the window.

Well, we were lucky all day with that wonderful sunshine, weren’t we? their mother said. Mugsy certainly enjoyed her walk. Henry, you need a haircut.

A cut or just a trim?

Oh, I’d say you’ve really let it go. What do you think, John?

I’d say he could use a shave, too.

All right, said Tyler a little irritably. I’ll go and get a haircut right now.

Get a shave, too, his brother said.

Yes, I heard the first time. Congratulations on the baby.

Is this the first you’ve heard about it?

What do you mean, John?

Oh, I just thought maybe Irene might have told you.

Why would she tell me before her own husband? Tyler said challengingly.

No one replied for a moment.

Irene has actually been looking a bit tired lately, their mother put in.

Oh, you think so? said John. I thought she was starting to fill out.

But she’s not so far along, is she? But it is true that the first two or three months are the worst. Later she’ll be more tired, of course, but the changes in the first few months are the most drastic. At least that was my experience with both of you.

I guess your experience beats ours in that department, said Tyler, going out the door.

My, but he looked sour! their mother said. I wonder if he’s feeling well?

He’s ridiculous.

John, you don’t have anything against your brother, do you?

And if I did, what would that be?

That’s not an answer, John.

Well, maybe it’s a question with no answer.

Every question has an answer, his mother asserted with considerable conviction.

Really, Mom? Then tell me this. Where do we come from and where are we going? Gauguin said that. I still have that book of reproductions you gave me. Where does my baby come from, and what will he become?

Yes, John, I know Gauguin said that and painted it, said his mother, rocking. He was a very, very unhappy man.

John tapped his foot.

Oh, dear. Is he jealous of you, sweetheart?

It’s nothing. We get along fine. Don’t you worry about it, Mom, replied the son in what he considered to be a brusquely well-meaning tone, but which came out a little more peremptory than that. Mrs. Tyler, absently rubbing together her arthritic fingers, gazed into his face with large eyes.

That fog’s pretty solid now, he said.

Have you decided on a name?

Eric.

And if it’s a girl?

Suzanne. But it won’t be a girl.

So you think it’s a boy. Have you gotten the ultrasound done?

Irene didn’t want to. It’s not up to me. Nothing’s up to me.

Nothing’s up to you? said Irene in a quiet fury as she came through the door. Mom, I want you to listen to that. This is how he always is with me. This is how your son talks to me, and I can’t bear it anymore!

Irene, Irene, Irene! said her mother-in-law, with a smile of loving exasperation. I was just telling John that the first two or three months are the worst. I recall that I got very moody as well…

I’m sorry, Mom, whispered Irene, suddenly very frightened. I’m sorry, John.

Oh, forget it, said John. Why don’t you sit down, Irene? You want an ice tea?

I want a beer, Irene thought to herself. I want to get drunk. — Yes, please, she said aloud. Can I pour you one, Mom?

The pitcher’s in that little fridge, said Mrs. Tyler. No, thank you, Irene. But it’s very sweet of you to ask. Maybe John would like a refill.

John said nothing. His eyes were pale blue like the Bay on a half-cloudy day. Irene brought the pitcher out and silently filled his glass, careful not to add any more ice cubes, which he detested. Then she poured herself one.

Where’s Mugsy? she said.

Mugsy’s taking a little nap, said her mother-in-law, with the usual smile of instant inanity that came whenever that creature was mentioned. Suddenly, awaking from her loving trance, she said: Irene, is it true that Koreans eat dogs?

Yes, Mom, in Korea. But I never have. My father’s side of the family really likes them, though. You want to hear a funny story, Mom? When we first moved to this country, my second uncle and auntie went to the supermarket, and they couldn’t read English very well, so when they got to the aisle where the pet stuff is and they saw all those bags of dog food, you know, with the different pictures of dogs on the different brands, they thought it was different kinds of dog meat, and they said: Wow, what a great country America is; it has everything!

Oh, my God, said Mrs. Tyler.

I’m sorry, Mom. Did I say anything wrong? I was just trying to—

John grinned. — You never told me that story, Irene. That’s pretty good.

No, I—

I’ll tell that one at work. Singer in particular will be amused. I’m always making him laugh. He keeps asking where I get so many good dirty jokes. You know where I get them? From the Internet.

Oh, please don’t tell that story at work, Irene said. I’d be embarrassed if other people knew. It makes my family sound so fresh off the boat. That’s why it’s kind of funny, I guess…

No one will think any the less of you if John tells that story, Irene, pronounced Mrs. Tyler decisively. It’s a sweet story.

Thank you, Mom.

Hey, Irene, said her husband.

What?

Your hair looks ratty. Lots of split ends. When are you going to fix it?

I have an appointment with Jordan for next Saturday, Irene said. Can you wait that long, or does it bother you so much to look at me?

How much does Jordan cost me?

I pay for Jordan, not you.

I said, how much does he cost?

Forty-five.

Forty-five dollars! For what? Does that include his tip?

Excuse me, said Irene, but it was you who started complaining about how I look, not me. You heard it all, Mom. What do you think?

Oh, I don’t want to get involved, said Mrs. Tyler. But I do think a woman should try to please her husband.

Okay, Mom, Irene said. Well, maybe you and your son can find a cheap haircutting place that will please your son, and I’ll cancel my appointment with Jordan and go wherever you say. Is that what you want me to do?

Don’t get ants in your pants, said John. Just calm down. If you want to go to Jordan you can go to Jordan. I can afford it.

I want a beer, said Irene.

But you’re pregnant! said Mrs. Tyler, shocked.

I’m going for a walk, said Irene. Do you want me to take Mugsy?

Sure, take Mugsy, said John, with evident relief. Mugsy, like the weather, was always a safe change of topic, perhaps even the shortest path out of the family labyrinth.

Thank you, Irene, said Mrs. Tyler. Mugsy will be thrilled to get another walk. You’re such a thoughtful girl.

Thanks for saying so, Mom. Where’s her leash?

It’s in the car.

Can I bring you back anything, Mom?

Not a thing, thank you.

Mom would like some low-fat yogurt, John said. Wouldn’t you, Mom?

Why, John, what a good idea. Irene, darling, would you mind?

No problem, said Irene.

And what about you, John? said Mrs. Tyler.

I’m fine. Hurry back, Irene.

Oh, John, said his mother, you never think of yourself.

When they were alone, Mrs. Tyler said: It’s almost as if you want them alone together.

What do you mean, Mom?

Well, you tell him to get a haircut; you tell her to fix her hair; don’t you think they’ll run into each other?

What are you saying?

Oh, she’s such a dear little girl, John, but don’t you see that she’s discontented?

Mugsy will have a good walk anyhow, John said. Mom, why don’t you lie down until Irene gets back with your dessert? I’ll wake you…

The frayed vacation went on like a whore babying her worn-out old cigarette lighter to get one last hit from her crack pipe, and then one more hit beyond the last hit, until finally it was over. The two brothers each made a separate mental note never to do that again. Mrs. Tyler for her own part felt relief upon regaining her solitude, and then felt guilty to be relieved. Irene remained silent. All these reactions were customary.

John and Irene drove Mrs. Tyler back to Sacramento. Tyler went quietly to San Francisco, smiling because in his shirt pocket were three long black hairs he’d stolen from Irene’s pillow.

The Vincy Company wanted him to screen three job applicants on his computer. It took him forty-five minutes for all three. He sent them a printout and a bill for three hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Two weeks later they hadn’t paid, and meanwhile he’d received an envelope from Datatronic Solutions which contained a Statement of account marked “urgent.” His current balance was zero dollars and zero point zero cents. Thus likewise his balance thirty-one to sixty days past due, and his balance sixty-one to ninety days past due. In the ominous box “Over 90 Days/Past Due” the figure $190.99 had been printed in boldface. Underneath this warning of liability, the Statement of Account, still trying to be friendly with Tyler, proposed the following helpful advice: To arrange for your balance to be paid with a Credit Card, please call the telephone number above. Thanks so much for your business!!!

Gazing out his living room window at the fog-suffused red and green traffic-winkings of the Sunset, he telephoned Datatronic Solutions and said: I have a question on my bill. Well, three questions actually.

Yes, sir. What’s your customer identification number?

We’ll get to that, Tyler said. But I get to ask my three questions first. Number one: Why do you have a slashmark between “ninety days” and “past due”? Number two: Why is “Credit Card” in title case? Number three: Why do you think you need three exclamation points when you’re thanking me for my business when I actually haven’t given you any business because I owe you two hundred dollars?

Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s this?

That’s for me to know and you to find out, said Tyler, hanging up. He telephoned the Vincy Company and asked the woman at Accounts Payable if she’d received his invoice. She said that she didn’t know.

It’s just a standard incorporation thing, said Brady. I’m trusting you to help me out on this, son.

You won’t be disappointed, Mr. Brady.

Glad to hear it, because I don’t disappoint very well. So what I need right now, John, I need a hardass. I need someone to say, this is what Brady’s gonna do, no arguments. I don’t want to drag it on.

I don’t know what to say, said John, trying to be polite.

If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything.

Fine, said John.

You got a problem with me?

Gazing into his client’s swollen, florid face, John said nothing.

I said, you got a problem with me?

Let’s leave me and my problems out of this, said John in a steely tone which Brady instantly recognized and respected.

You passed the test, sonny. All right. Now, the name of the operation is going to be Feminine Circus. Nationwide franchises planned, that kind of crap. It’s gonna generate competition. I want you to rig things for me, John, so that my enemies can’t get to me. I want interlocking trusts, dummy corporations, whatever you think I need to be protected. Until the deal’s done, I don’t want anyone to know I’m behind it. The first outlet is going to open in Vegas, so that’ll be governed by the laws of Nevada, but I want you to handle it for me because I anticipate opening two more outlets very soon in L.A., another in San Diego, and maybe one here in Frisco.

Whatever you say, said John. But I’m sure you know that Nevada, like Delaware, is exempt from a lot of regulations. So many California businesses do it the other way around and incorporate in Nevada. I mean, Nevada is corporate paradise.

Yeah, well, I’d just feel a lot safer dealing with contract attorneys who don’t have any ties to Nevada. Feminine Circus is a unique concept, John. I don’t want some big boy in Vegas to rip me off.

Fine, said John.

Now, what do you need to get started?

Maybe you could tell me a little about the business, Mr. Brady.

Entertaaaaaaaaaaainment, said Brady with a wink.

Anything illegal? said John. I don’t care who you are or how much money you have. I’m not interested in breaking the law.

That’s your bottom line, huh? Well, don’t worry about that, you little twerp. It’s all gonna be virtual reality. Electronic sex shows. Just masturbation with a few photons. No minors admitted, of course. I’m counting on you to take care of the zoning commissions. Your brother was just telling me how the Sacramento city council fucked over that Club Fantasy, made ’em install handicapped ramps for their dancers and all kinds of other shit, then pulled the plug because some day care center popped up outta nowhere…

My brother? said John slowly.

Sure. That pimply-faced Hank Tyler. Says he’s your brother, anyhow. I’m paying him less than I’m paying you.

What are you using Hank for?

Hunting up some talent for the big act. I guess you and he don’t communicate much, do you?

You’re paying me for my time, Mr. Brady, said John. If you want to squander money asking me questions about my brother, I can’t stop you. But I’d really prefer that you mind your own goddamned business.

Heh! heh! Boy stands up to me! I like you, Johnny! Listen, sonny, said Brady, waving a purple finger in John’s face with the utmost sincerity, you and I are going to go places.

Since the Queen had not yet replied to any of his letters (with each of which he’d included his business card, the answering machine number circled in red), Tyler made arrangements to meet his old friend Athena, who was as Greek and wise and upliftingly haughty as her name. Seeing her might get family matters out of his head, and help him with the Brady job, too.

She embraced him calmly, wearing a long black dress. They went to the hotel bar, which she knew as well as she did all the other hotel bars in that part of town, and she ordered a shot of Red and he ordered a shot of Black.

You look so beautiful, he said. Are you and your husband going to have a child?

Never, she said. How can I have a child and keep making calls?

Your husband wouldn’t be a good father?

No, she said, lighting a long thin cigarette. And what’s your news? You look tired. Anyway, why do you want me to have a child?

It would be nice if there were a little girl in this world who looked like you, he said.

That’s sweet, she said, smiling.

Cheers, he said.

Are you going to have a child? asked Athena in an innocent tone.

Tyler choked on his drink.

I’ve been looking for the Queen, he said. Do you know her?

Of course I know her. But we don’t exactly move in the same circles. Twice a week I do volunteer work and hand out condoms to the street girls—

I tried a female condom not long ago, Tyler said. It was like screwing a plastic bag.

She laughed. — You know what I do? I make all my clients wear two condoms! I’m a little bit paranoid.

Why do they even bother to stick it in? he asked wonderingly. I guess I would just touch you with my hand or my mouth or something.

Some of them do that, she said.

And your husband?

He only has to wear one. I don’t want to get pregnant, and I don’t want to take the pill, but he’s my husband.

Athena worked out of her house and advertised in the adult newspaper the Voyeur. Last weekend she had made in one day eight hundred dollars — six clients back to back, so to speak, for the full service; at the end of the day she was really tired, but it was the best money that she’d made in a long time. She paid off her credit card bills.

So you see the street girls twice a week? Tyler pursued, trying to be the conscientious detective.

I do. And sometimes I feel like there are two people inside me, one for the streets and one for the bars.

I always figured you were somehow struggling with yourself. You seemed kind of tense when I saw you last year. I was worried about you—

I was? I don’t remember.

You don’t seem as tense tonight.

Actually I’m feeling pretty tense, she said. I’m so bored with everything.

How much does the agency take? Fifty percent?

A little more. Not much.

Why don’t you and your friends set up your own agency?

You keep telling me that. You don’t understand. An ad in the yellow pages costs five thousand a month. I don’t know anyone who has that kind of money.

In Vegas they use fliers.

I hate Vegas. They don’t like me there. They want big tall blondes with those scary boobs.

So you’re bored, he said. How have the customers been treating you?

Oh, fine. I like some of them. One German banker just took me to Switzerland for two weeks. He was very generous, but I thought the food would be better. And I tried to get him to leave me alone, but he kept trying to make me angry… One man looked at me and said: Do you do this for the money? I thought that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard…

Tyler finished his drink. The lounge waitress brought him another. There goes seven or eight more dollars, I guess, he thought to himself.

Maybe I’m more tense because I know you better, Athena said.

Well, that’s a compliment, said Tyler. Hey, I want to rip my employer off. You know a good place to hide money?

I hate you! she laughed.

She was very beautiful and severe, a slender brunette with sad black eyes. He had known her for three or four years. — Athena, I’d like to see you professionally, he said, swallowing.

Oh, stop it, she said. He could tell that she was pleased.

All right. So what’s the best way to meet the Queen?

Write her. There’s a parking garage where she gets her mail…

I know about that. I tried that.

And did she answer?

No.

I guess she doesn’t want to meet you then, said Athena.

You’re right, Tyler said. Well, I’m tired. I suppose I’ll turn in.

He left thirty-five dollars for the drinks. As they were leaving the bar, they spied a knot of businessmen standing in the doorway, and Athena sighed and said: Maybe I’ll stay here and see if I can get one of them to go upstairs with me…

Just as he got home, the telephone rang. He thought it would be Brady, but it was a wrong number.

The telephone rang.

Yeah, he said.

Harry Tooler, please?

Sounds like a telephone sale, said Tyler.

Oh, no, sir. This is an opportunity call.

Not interested, he said, hanging up.

The phone rang immediately.

Hello? he said patiently.

Is this Harry Tooler? said a different woman.

Is this a telephone sale?

No, sir, I don’t sell anything over the phone. I only want to tell you about my products, the woman said brightly.

No, thank you, he said, hanging up.

The phone rang at once.

I’ll stick my hairy tool in you! he shouted.

Just what’s that supposed to mean, Hank? came his brother’s voice.

It means I probably didn’t get that garage mechanic’s job, said Tyler.

Oh, forget it, said John. The reason I called is that I gather we’re both working for Jonas Brady.

Yep, I guess we are, said Tyler. Is it working out, being his lawyer?

I can’t help but admire the guy, said John. He knows what he wants. But since he also hired you, I wonder if he’s up to anything illegal.

I did a T.U. on him already.

A what?

A Trans Union. A credit check. John, he has very, very good credit.

He does, huh? said Tyler’s brother, impressed in spite of himself.

I ran him through TRW also and tied him to a social security number in Missouri. Nothing wrong with that.

That spying business you’re into doesn’t really make him smell like a rose, if he’s into it, too.

I get it, said Tyler. Since I’m working for him, he’s no good.

Exactly, said John.

Tyler laughed sadly. — So what do you want to know?

What are you doing for him?

Standard missing persons case. Well, almost standard. He’s looking for the Queen of the Whores, and there might actually be such a lady. I already have a few leads. Kind of interesting, actually. He’ll probably terminate me pretty soon…

How much is he paying you?

Oh, decent.

How are you fixed for money, Hank?

Oh, fine, said Tyler heartily.

I thought I saw you at the courthouse yesterday.

Well, I was, uh, researching the Queen because the computer only gives case number and jurisdiction for a defendant so you have to go to court and order the—

You’re a mess, Hank. You’re disorganized. You need help.

Oh, forget it, said Tyler.

You need a loan, don’t you?

I said forget it.

All right, I’ll butt out of your business. But can you swear to me there’s nothing illegal going on with Brady? As I said, I like him fine, but the fact that he’s—

Look, John. You yourself just said that in my line of work, people cut corners. But nothing egregious is going on. I have to tell you, though, that the guy gives me the creeps. I think he’s evil and up to no good. If I find this Queen I’m going to warn her before I show him where she is. But that’s what I always do. You see, some of these stalkers—

Evil is one thing. Evil’s only subjective. Illegal is another.

John, just be careful. I’m telling you, Brady gives me a bad feeling.

All right, whatever. Have you called Mom lately?

Yes, I have. And I called the doctor, too. She’s not doing so well, you know.

You have the nerve to tell me that!

John?

What?

John, how are you doing these days?

Just what is that supposed to mean?

John, you know I’m sorry about—

Oh, for God’s sake. Can’t we leave her out of this? Just once?

Whatever you say, John.

And how are you doing?

You already asked me that.

Well, I’m asking again, bro.

I can’t say things are going so well for me, John. But you know I was always a whiner. Actually, things aren’t so bad. Why don’t you come on by for dinner on Thursday or Friday and we’ll…

Goddamned fucking jerk, said John. Look how he just sits there. Right turn. Right turn. Right turn, you fucking asshole!

John, said Irene, could I please ask you a favor?

What?

Please please don’t brake so hard. I’m carrying a baby, you know.

Thanks for reminding me, said John. Fucking jerk. Look at him. Just look at him.

Irene grimaced and rubbed her temples. The red neon chain blinked around the yellow sign for the Russian Renaissance Restaurant where Henry had once taken her, and then the light changed and they were past it, Geary Street leading them deeper into the fog. Red bus-lights glared, ringed around with mist like the moon in some old almanac, and then after a long light John turned sharply on Nineteenth so that Irene was thrown against her seatbelt. They crossed Anza Street. John turned sharply left again. Irene felt like vomiting. Now they were crossing Golden Gate Park. The stream of tail-lights ahead of them in the fog of Park Presidio resembled the articulated scales of some complex Chinese dragon made of bright red paper.

I don’t want you to let him kiss you hello, John said.

Aren’t you maybe worrying about nothing?

It makes me sick. I can hardly stand the bastard as it is. If he weren’t my goddamned brother…

John slammed the car faster and slower through the traffic of Nineteenth, which sloped ever so gently uphill in the fog, everything grey; it would be a night of fog, with coronas around all the streetlights.

Tyler lived on Pacheco, just off Nineteenth, so he was actually very close to where the old Parkside Theater used to be — one reason that he had felt pleased with his address when he’d moved in fourteen years ago — to say nothing of the cheapness of it, thanks to quiet and to fog. John, of course, had long since accepted the dismal blocky ugliness of his brother’s choice as further evidence of ineptitude, if not of actual inferiority. To him the place had and was exactly nothing.

They parked in the driveway, and Irene, sitting queasily in the car, let John go ahead to ring the buzzer for Number Four. It was all too clear to her that she had better not act in any way eager, that her only permitted role tonight would be that of mournful irritability, so that John would be able to say at last: Well, Irene seems to be out of sorts. She’s hardly said a word all evening. What’s the matter with you, Irene? I’m going to take you home. Anyway I have some work to do…

What’s the matter? he was calling to her now. Can’t you see I’m holding the door open?

Irene got out of the car and shut her door. With an impatient finger-stab on the small black remote unit which he clenched, John locked and alarm-activated the vechicle against foggy intruders. Irene gazed up at the sky, inhaling cold, refreshing fog.

That coffee-maker of yours really sucks, John said as kindly as he could. If you’ll just read about it in Consumer Reports you’ll understand that there’s no way it could ever make good coffee. Irene, do you think we should get Hank a decent capuccino machine for Christmas?

If that’s what he wants, his wife replied almost inaudibly.

Tyler longed to ask her whether she might be unwell; but he knew that any such question would send John into a rage.

Well, enough of this swill, said John, taking his mug and Irene’s and dashing their contents out into the sink. Tyler sat sipping steadily from his cup.

The chicken was very good, said Irene without enthusiasm.

What are you talking about? laughed John. He burned it! He fucking burned it! Henry, you’ve got to get married. Mom wants you to! Not that it’s any skin off my nose, but you’re going to starve to death or poison yourself or something if you don’t find a woman to cook for you.

Do you have anyone in mind? Tyler drawled, staring into Irene’s face.

If I did, it would be pure self-defense, John replied. I think you know what I mean. Why don’t you take out an ad in the paper or something? How long has it been since what’s-her-name?

Jackie? said Tyler with weary patience.

I wasn’t even thinking about her. She never counted. No, I was thinking about… — John snapped his fingers.

You mean Alyssa.

That’s right, that’s right! John cried with a sudden strange gaiety. Alyssa — that was her name. And she would have done anything for you, but you let her go, you stupid, stupid sonofabitch!

How long ago was that, Henry? whispered Irene with effort.

Seven years ago, Tyler said. No, eight years ago. We broke up just before Christmas 1985. She, uh… I guess she still hates me…

She would have married you! laughed John. And you showed her the door! And you said, get out of here, bitch! You said—

It didn’t happen quite that way, John.

And Mom liked her, too, his brother said accusingly. Mom would have given anything to see you married.

Well, that’s not a secret, said Tyler, his hand trembling.

So you didn’t marry her. You let her go. What was the reason? John persisted, and Tyler felt hatred red and black and wobbling rise up in his stomach.

Irene sat staring down at her plate.

I guess we just didn’t get along, Tyler said finally, relieved to hear the steadiness in his voice. Now the hatred was in his chest.

Look, John said. You’ve got to face facts, Hank. You have a crummy personality. You’ve always had a crummy personality. No woman’s going to enjoy being with you. So if you catch one, you’ve got to get your hooks in her while you can. You’re going to be miserable no matter what you do, so why not just get married and forget it?

Just pretend this is Mission Street, Tyler thought to himself. Just pretend that he is a crazy and potentially violent panhandler who must be humored. He smiled at John and was about to offer him more coffee, but then he remembered that the mugs had been taken away.

The following morning was blue and cool in San Francisco. Tyler sat at the counter of a coffee bar across the street from his apartment, gazing down at the wood that the steadily darkening espresso in his cup rested upon, and he ran his forefinger along the lines of grain as if they were trails of meaning in a street map. He put a new surveillance report form onto his clipboard and wrote: 2:48 a.m. Domino and other unidentified Caucasian female entered garage with middle-aged Afro-American male, exited 3:04 a.m. He wrote down the license plate number of the car across the street, added some more garbage, and that form was a quarter finished… A woman with wet dark bangs and sunglasses kept breaking off pieces of her scone and easing them into her newspaper-reading boyfriend’s mouth, after which she licked her fingers. — Well, thought Tyler, it’s obvious who loves whom.

Any new developments? said Brady, sliding into the stool beside him.

Morning, boss.

Boss again, is it? I can take a hint. Sure, I’ll pay you. Why do you need it now? You sexually compromised?

Tyler thought but did not say: Mister, you are a toad. — But then he thought happily: And a rich one, too.

Well, did you find the Queen? said Brady.

Not yet.

But you did find something?

She’s smarter than I figured. I sent her some love letters and they stayed in that parking garage. They’re still there and it’s been two weeks. She must have read them there, or somebody read them for her. I’m sure she knows about us now, but we still don’t know where she is.

Well, it’s great she knows me, but I’m not trying to get elected. I’m sick of flushing money down the toilet. I want it to stop today. I want you to take care of it today.

Why do you want to find the Queen anyway, boss? What is it you want to say to her?

Classified, said Brady. Then he winked and said: I want her to be the star attraction of a little franchise operation I’m putting together in Vegas. I’m going to teach her to sing a little jingle that goes like this: Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp… You know what that means?

So Vegas is still a boomtown? said Tyler. I figured it must have hit recession by now. Shows how much I know.

The builders are building as fast as they can. Retirees are moving into that town at a record rate. We’re going to have the biggest planned community in the world.

I thought you were from Missouri.

That’s beside the point. Las Vegas has been booming for forty years. Las Vegas is not overbuilt. Eighty-five percent of the people in the United States have not visited Las Vegas.

Including the Queen, I guess.

You spend a lot of time in the Tenderloin, don’t you?

Some.

Can’t you just imagine the way it used to be when it was the Barbary Coast? said Brady with a dreamy grin. All the casino dealers in black and white, and the cocktail ladies in pure white with gold-lined sleeves, showing titty, you know, with those old one-strap skirts so short they hardly cover their asses, yeah. I want to bring all that back. Have a single gold band just above the hem of the skirt, a silver belt, and make ’em all wear a long pigtail; if you tip ’em good maybe they can slap your face with it… Know what I’m saying?

I get it, said Tyler, not very interested.

And Feminine Circus will be like that, only new and different.

How can skin shows be different?

Oh, I’ll tell you something, Brady said. I’ve had a cunt that tastes like steak tartare. That’s easy. What I’m looking for is a cunt that tastes like roasted chicken. Now, that’d be different, wouldn’t it?

I don’t think in those terms.

Now, like I said, I want all this runaround to stop today. You hear what I had to do to that phony you sent me?

Yeah, I heard she wound up with some health problems.

Somehow, said Brady with a grin, I just had the impression that she was lying to me.

You remind me of my brother, Tyler said, narrowing his eyes as he gazed into Brady’s florid face. I’d like to introduce you sometime.

John Tyler? laughed his boss, lighting up a fat cigar. The one with the Chink wife? He’s already working for me. I’m paying him more than I’m paying you.

What had happened on that day when Tyler had led from that parking garage a slender and submissive little black woman who silently sat down in the passenger seat of Brady’s rental car as Tyler, following previous instructions, closed the door from the outside and walked off to his bus stop? Investigate the mouth of truth, and await his splendid roar which will answer every question. Tyler had ostensibly found truth’s mouth; Brady had hired him for that. Now Brady would hear that jangled, metallic roaring for himself, or else. He stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth. The prostitute cleared her throat. (Behind her, a woman with a white shopping bag leaned against the scuffed yellow-lit wall.) Brady turned the key in the ignition, listened to the radio for a moment, backed out of the parking space, and began heading west.

So you’re the Queen, huh? he said, gazing straight over the steering wheel.

Uh huh. What do you want with me?

Oh, I guess I wanted to pay you for your time.

I don’t come cheap, said the Queen.

I don’t care if you come at all, said Brady. Coming is the man’s job.

Are you a misogynist?

Some whore asked Mr. Tyler that just the other day. Domino, her name was. I’m trying to talk like him. Hey, Your Highness, I’ve been studying up on royalty. Did you know that the kings of France in the Middle Ages were born with a scarlet fleur-de-lys on the right shoulder? My slapper told me that.

A floor de what?

You know, a triple lily flower. I’m educated. The insiginia of France. I just wondered if you had any kind of mark on your body that proved you were the Queen.

Mister, are you calling me a liar?

Would I call a lady that? Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp… Come on, Your Highness. That’s the kind of question I ask.

I feel like you’re mocking me.

I’m sorry, said Brady. I’ll try to be nicer to you.

And he was. Brady’s huge shoulders rose in a friendly fashion in the slate-colored business suit, and the faint smell of cologne thrilled her mercenary desires. He spent fifty dollars on her in an Italian restaurant (she ordered some little baguette-like thing shaped like a turd) and got her all mellow and fuddled with wine while he agreed with everything she said, saying: yes, ma’am, or I think you’re right, ma’am. He said to her: You are the Queen of the nicest little city around.

I don’t get much time to appreciate it right now, said the Queen. I’m awfully busy. Where are you from?

Wherever you’re from.

Uh huh, said the Queen.

And what about Henry Tyler?

Who?

I told you. That guy that brought you to me. Has he gotten emotionally compromised with any of your girls?

I never asked him, said the Queen.

Now who’s Sapphire?

A girl.

Yeah. Thanks a lot. I already figured she was split between her legs. What does she do for you?

That’s between us, Mr. Brady.

Does she exist?

She exists.

How many girls you got?

Enough.

I’m a businessman, you know. I just might be making you the big offer. But you’re going to have to put out.

Oh, cripes, said the Queen.

Do you believe I’ve got money?

Yes.

Do you believe I know that you believe it?

Cut the crap.

Do you believe I believe that you’re the Queen?

Not yet.

Do you believe I’m dangerous?

The Queen shot him a bitter glare.

Well?

I believe you’re not a nice man. I believe you’re volatile. I don’t really want to listen to your proposition.

Oh, so I pushed you over the edge, laughed Brady, pleased with himself. Okay, let me be nice to you again.

And he was. It didn’t take long — a little more money, and he had the bitch eating out of his hand! Everybody’s the same, he thought. Feed ’em or punch ’em. Then you’ll get whatever you need. But this one stinks. She’s not smart enough to be Queen. This is a setup. This is a flunkey switch. I should send her back happy, but you know what, God? You know fucking what? I won’t.

You get out much, ma’am? he said.

You know, said the tipsy woman, I used to go to Land’s End a lot. Just to kinda watch the fog. (I like this wine. This wine has a lot of class.) It was, well, I don’t know exactly — so lovely like the inside of those seashells you can find sometimes all silvery and shimmery — mother-of-pearl, that’s the word I was trying to remember. My memory’s not so good now. But all those trees, they just stood there, so tall and dark and kind of solid against that fog. If it started to rain, they’d protect me. But if it kept on raining, then after a while they let that rain through. I guess that’s how it is, huh? Nothing can protect you forever.

Well, by all means let’s go out to Land’s End, said Brady.

He ushered her back into his rental car and began to drive slowly down Geary Street, weaving. A cop waved them down.

Don’t I know you? the cop said to the Queen.

No, officer, you don’t know me.

It sounds like the Queen, Brady mumbled. It sounds like her. That’s the kicker. That’s just what the Queen would say.

Let’s see your license, the cop said to Brady.

Brady worked his wallet out from up against his fat buttock and handed it to the cop, money and all. — Help yourself, he said.

The cop fiddled with the wallet until he found the license. — Out of state, huh? And who’s the lady?

My Queen.

I oughta send you to jail for twenty days for driving under the influence, said the cop. I can smell it on your breath.

Sure it’s on my breath, said Brady. Doesn’t mean I’m drunk, though.

The cop said: I should have you take a sobriety test. I should have you walk the white line.

Go ahead, said Brady. I still got three legs.

The cop laughed. — Get out of here, he said. Don’t let me catch you driving like that again. Have a nice stay in San Francisco.

Thank you, officer, said Brady. Rolling up the window, he uttered a magnificent Bronx cheer.

The woman was very quiet beside him on that almost fogless afternoon, all the buildings in focus beneath the smoky yellow sky. There was an Asian wedding by the Exploratorium; the bride appeared chilly in her fluttering gown.

They came to Land’s End and parked. Trees were groping and reaching, shaking like a handful of darkdyed peacock plumes tied together and whirled in a crazy boy’s hand. Brady got out and led the unresisting woman into the bushes. They gazed down at the sea for a while. Then he put his arm around her and whispered into her ear: Hey, baby, I don’t believe you’re the Queen.

The woman stiffened. — Why, you motherfucker! That’s the second time you’ve insulted me. You called me a liar, didn’t you? You think I’m lying?

Brady kissed her neck. — Yes, I do.

Smiling tenderly, he pulled out his Para-Ordnance P-12, cocked the hammer, and put the barrel to the spot on her throat that he had kissed. — You know, it has a grip safety, he said. Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp… That’s Invisible Empire talk. That’s Klan talk, baby. If I don’t actually squeeze the grip, it won’t shoot, even when I pull the trigger. See?

Don’t, the woman whispered.

Now I know you’re not the Queen. The Queen would never beg before me like that.

He ground the barrel hard against her larynx and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Withdrawing the gun from the sagging woman, he pulled the slide back and thumbed the magazine release. — You see, it’s empty. Do you know why, nigger? ’Cause carrying a concealed weapon is a felony. Hah!

From his pocket he took out another clip, this one loaded with hollowpoints. He clicked it firmly in with the heel of his hand, and forefingered the slide release so that the slide suddenly lunged forward with a steely slamming noise.

Now let’s try that grip safety, he said.

He put the gun to the woman’s head again. The hammer had remained cocked. With his hand not touching the back of the grip, he began very slowly to squeeze the trigger.

What do you want me to prove? she wailed. How am I supposed to prove that? You either believe me or you don’t. Oh, I was such a fool. I’d started to trust you. I thought you were a nice guy.

And when you tell me you’re the Queen, are you just saying you’re the Queen or are you lying to me?

What kind of a choice is that? I told you I’m the Queen because I’m the Queen.

Okay, here come two joggers. I’m going to put my arm around you and you’re going to put your head on my shoulder like this so that nobody can see the gun. If you scream, I’ll kill you. Do you believe me?

Please… please… What do you want me to do? I can give really good head.

Calls herself the Queen, said Brady in disgust, shoving her down in the mud and kicking her. The joggers were very close now. They were a young couple, spoiled and athletic from the look of them, with expensive running shoes and tinted sunglasses. The woman looked shocked and started to say something, so Brady flashed the gun, put on his most menacing expression and snarled: Keep moving, cunt!

Come on, Tracy, said the husband, let’s get out of here.

Okay, said Brady to the sobbing prostitute underfoot. He turned her over with a kick and stepped on her breast, pointing the gun down at her. — This is your only chance, nigger, he said. Where’s the Queen?

In — in the garage…

Which garage?

The one… the same one—

Where we found you?

Yes—

And she’s waiting for you to report in?

Yes… I didn’t… If you let me go I won’t tell…

All right then. Stand up, nigger. Goddamned fucking puke-faced muddy bitch Queen of the Whores, Queen of Scum… Now I’m going to hit you in the stomach. If you scream you’re dead. I’m going to put you in the hospital, bitch. I’m going to break a couple ribs. You know why? Because your Queen tried to Jew me down, and you lied to me.

Having cooled down, body and soul, Brady achieved the conclusion that Tyler had not betrayed him. Shoddy work, to be sure, but not dishonest — thus the boss’s conclusion; for Tyler had never testified under oath that this woman (toward whose blackness Brady admitted to have been predisposed) was definitely the Queen. Shit happens, thought original Brady. He eased himself into the rental car, opened the glove compartment, and cross-checked some receipts that Tyler had given him, pounding the calculator with his stubby fingers until he was soothed. All Tyler’s numbers were correct, he was happy to say. He knew the sonofabitch was robbing him but that was okay as long as he didn’t get too sloppy or greedy about it; such was the prime rule. Here was a manila envelope full of surveillance forms, too. Brady pulled one sheet out of the middle of the pile, skimmed it, grunted, and then took the whole stack and threw them into a garbage can. That put him in fine spirits. He eased his rental car out of there and turned back east onto Geary Street, passing the Chinese seafood restaurant with painted dragons on the walls and then Joe’s ice cream parlor, where he had never been, flashed square and white in his sideview mirror; here came the Korean barbeque joints and the Korean restaurants. Geary Street was wide, characterless, and full of traffic. At Stanyan Street the big road opened up further, letting in windy brightness. He wormed through the squat short tunnel with daylight in narrow truncated pyramids upon its tiles, rolled down the slope to Divisadero, did not read the graffiti on the bricks of the middle school, dipped under the next bridge and yawned at the astrological signs of Japantown — crab, mandala, elephant — and then rolled up the last hill whose ugly vertebral columns of apartments along the Gough Street ridge offered strategic Tenderloin views; down the curve of Starr King to Van Ness he went, and suddenly he was in the narrow canyon of old badlands which constituted the Tenderloin. Here glowed the rain forest mural on the side wall of the Mitchell Brothers theater where world-famed Will McMaster had once pissed in one corner of the Ultra Room; here stood the Iroquois Hotel where Tyler had once stayed for a week between jobs; here grew the bricks, fire escapes and Vietnamese restaurants of the kingdom. Tyler would have shot a glance down Leavenworth, which was sunny and empty, the grating retracted on liquor stores; as for Brady, he was too busy. As usual, the Queen’s parking garage offered vacancies. Up the slanting alimentary tract to the third floor he drove, mad as hell. There was the grating that Tyler had shown him, double-locked, with darkness behind it. — He shook it like an orangutan in a cage and yelled: Hey you, bitch!

The Queen did not answer.

He kicked the grating one more time, then laughed.

Tyler says we’re already burned, he shouted. Tyler says you know us. Well, I don’t give a shit! You get the hint?

He opened the trunk, dumped the half-dead woman out. Her flesh slapped liquidly against the concrete. She lay still.

In the basement the ceiling was low enough to touch, everything humming and echoing, piss and oil and gasoline on the concrete whose painted arrows lay like frozen missiles at the mouths of downramps in this gilded gloom. He heard voices everywhere, unintelligibly pulsing. At last he realized that they were coming through the pipes. Khrushchev-inspired, he took one of his shoes off and banged it against the nearest conduit: Going, goiiinnnnng! The voices stopped.

Again he laughed.

A mesh gate gave onto the utility room, which was crusted with white flakes, as of battery acid residue. Pipes like metallic mushrooms clung in rows to the walls. Here a skinny old wino sat looking at him with intelligent eyes and finally said: Are you feeling hard and mean?

I beg your pardon? said Brady.

I said, are you feeling hard and mean?

I’m looking for the Queen, said Brady on impulse.

The man’s face opened and shone. — Her name’s Gloria, he said. She is the shining sea of Gloria Gloria Gloria.

What’s your name, sir? said Brady, amused.

Jimmy.

I thought her name was Vanna, said a wide-eyed moonfaced young fellow with glasses who kept wiping at his forehead. God, my balls hurt.

Get a job, son, said Brady. What are you two doing in there?

Getting drunk on his money, said old Jimmy with a laugh. He’s doin’ some article on me for the newspaper…

Well, I’ll leave you to it. Get emotionally compromised if you want. I don’t have time for your foolishness.

If a fool and his money are soon parted, then why am I a millionaire? cackled the old wino.

Brady shrugged and, ticket in hand, strode back to the bright wide realm of that parking garage where adjoining x’es and incandescent tubes like giant paperclips bounced cleanliness off polished tiles, the floor slippery as if from some secretion bubbling up from underneath. A spectacled man bowed inside his glass booth. An LED display brightened his window.

As pretty as Christmas! Brady shouted, knocking on the glass.

Gazing round, he saw that this was even truer than he had supposed, for murals of nature lived upon the walls. Did the Mitchell Brothers own this place, too, or was nature’s sentimentalization a fad in the Tenderloin? The cashier still had not responded to his signal.

He knocked again on the glass, harder, and the man frowned, pulled off a pair of earphones, and waited.

Where’s the Queen? shouted Brady into the glass.

Maybe the guy couldn’t speak English. Shifting his polymath gears, Brady bellowed:

Donday esta el Raino?

Irene had an accident with John’s car and asked Tyler to take the blame, because she was scared. It was not a bad accident, just a paint-scraper, a mirror-breaker. Tyler called John at work, told him that Irene had let him borrow the car while his was in the shop, and that he had scraped a power pole. He promised to pay the repair cost. John laughed tolerantly and the whole thing was no problem. That having been resolved, Tyler phoned Irene to give her a report.

Thank you, she said. I love you.

Love you, too, he said. What did you do the rest of the day?

I stayed in bed. I was depressed at having to ask you.

On Monday John had to go to Cleveland for a week for a business trip. Irene had said that she would come over on Wednesday to do their laundry because the washing machine in Tyler’s apartment was free, but Tuesday night she said that she wasn’t coming. Tyler had a terrible headache right then; he really wasn’t feeling well. So he didn’t try to argue with her. He just said: Well, honey, I’m sorry you’re not coming. I’ll see you next time.

But on Wednesday afternoon he discovered that he had been missing her all day, so he called her up. He was going to ask how she was, but by the time her telephone began to ring he’d decided that that was too forward, so when she answered on the third ring he just said: Hello, Irene. I was going to be driving through your neighborhood and I wondered if you needed me to bring anything.

Nothing that I can think of, said Irene so sweetly. But thank you for asking. How have you been?

OK, he said, already bored with the conversation. What are you doing right now?

Nothing. Watching TV.

He wanted to say: Well, why don’t you come over, then, sweetheart?

What’s the program about?

I guess it’s a thriller. I don’t know what it is. Somebody is killing somebody.

Oh, he said. That sounds good. Well, I’ll let you get back to it.

What was wrong with him? He felt so peculiar and perplexed. As soon as he hung up he wanted to call Irene back again and he knew that he couldn’t. He actually lifted the receiver and depressed the numbered white studs, desperate to tell her: I just wanted to hear your voice. — But he left the last digit unpushed, and after a moment sighed and put the phone back to bed. — You know, I had this dream, he wanted to say to her. You and I were walking in a cornfield, and you had on this beautiful long white dress and you were holding my hand and smiling at me. And then you… — He had not had any dream of the kind. He could scarcely understand his own emotions, his almost invincible desire to invent this absurd lie. Irene would have been silent, he supposed, and then he would have gone on: You… I made you happy… — He waited a week, and then invited her out for lunch. She said she was depressed and didn’t have the energy to leave the house; would tomorrow be all right? He was busy tomorrow, but the next day she picked him up at home, since she was out in her car anyway doing errands, and they went to one of the Korean barbecue places on Geary Street. He asked her if she wanted a beer, and she hesitated and agreed. He ordered one apiece.

So how are you doing? he said finally.

Oh, you know how it is, she said. Her eyes were red and swollen.

Do you feel the baby yet?

I feel something. I don’t know if it’s the baby or not.

You look so sad, he said. What’s wrong, honey? Please tell me what the matter is.

You know what the matter is, said Irene. That’s all I ever talk about. I’m sorry…

There was a black cat on the window-seat, basking — a creature of great elegance and self-assurance which presently began to purr in the soft low buzz of an electric razor. Irene smiled at it and made kissing sounds, but it ignored her.

Did you have pets when you were a kid? said Tyler.

Irene nodded, her glass at her lips. The waitress had begun to unload the usual immense appetizer tray of kimchees white and red, pickled fish, dried fish, seaweed soup, miso paste. Irene set her glass down, took her chopsticks from the paper envelope, and began to grate them back and forth against each other in case there might be splinters. The cat went on purring.

And how’s work for you? asked Irene.

Slow. Still looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found. You had cats, you said?

She nodded again, listlessly. Then she took her chopstick wrapper and began twisting it, teeth sinking ruthlessly into her lower lip as she stared aimlessly about, spurious, objectless copy of some fighting-girl on speed who rushed back and forth along Valencia Street, looking for the two girls she had beaten because she lusted to beat them again. Irene, of course, was not the fighting kind.

John and I always had dogs, Tyler said. Sheep dogs, border collies, you know…

How’s Mugsy?

I don’t know. I didn’t ask Mom…

I always had bad luck with cats and I love them so much, said Irene. In Korea we had one cat, and when he was hardly more than a baby he went out one night and I guess he must have found some poison. Maybe rat poison. He came into the house real early in the morning, throwing up blood and this horrible yellow stuff, and he was in convulsions. I guess he came home because he thought we could save him. With cats and dogs, one of the most amazing things about them is the way they get to trust you. You can do anything to them, even if it hurts, because they know you love them and are trying to do the best thing for them. And that cat — I said he was our cat, but really he was my cat; he loved me the best, and I loved him — well, Henry, he kept looking into my eyes. He was rolling around on the rug and screaming and whenever he caught his breath he kept looking into my face ’cause he believed in me. He was sure I could do something. I took him to the vet before school. I was actually a little late for school. And I was nervous about that, ’cause I’d never been late before. I wasn’t a good girl in school that day. I kept crying and praying. And I just ran home. I asked my grandmother if the vet had been able to fix my cat, and she said, no, they couldn’t fix him. Because the intestines were all torn. The vet buried him.

Probably threw him in the garbage, Tyler thought to himself.

Bending over, the waitress reached beneath the table, turned on the gas jet, and then lit it. Blue flames danced evilly up. With tongs and scissors, the waitress took the kalbi and bulgoki strips out of the marinade and laid them into the grill, where they began to sizzle loudly. With a mechanical smile, Irene accepted the tongs from her and began to turn the meat. Then the waitress thrust the scissors into the marinade bowl and carried it away.

So they got me another cat, Irene said. Another boy cat. I was about fifteen then. I was late starting my period, but one day it came. And the cat knew right off. He started to lick me.

Were your parents happy that you’d become a woman?

I didn’t tell them. In my family we don’t talk about those things.

I know one Japanese girl whose mother cooked red beans that night to celebrate, said Tyler. And when her father wanted to know what the fuss was all about, her mother just said that a very good thing had happened.

I guess my mother must have known, because my underpants were bloody, Irene said, picking up strips of well-done meat with the tongs and putting them on his plate. — My cat sure knew. In our house the cats weren’t supposed to sleep inside. But every night at around midnight this cat would scratch at my window, and I’d get up and let him in. And he’d come into my bed and lick my nightgown all night, right between my breasts. His tongue was kind of rough, and sometimes it almost hurt, but it also felt really good. He licked so much that my nightgown turned black there. Every night he’d come and do that, and sleep with me. It was kind of my secret, I guess. It made me feel special. And in the morning when I went to school, that cat would follow me along the top of the wall as far as he could, and then in the afternoon when I came home he’d be waiting for me. Well, we were getting ready to move to America then. My grandmother was already in Los Angeles, and then my big aunt and uncle, and then little aunt and uncle, and then it was just us and we’d already sold our house. I asked my mother what was going to happen to my cat, and she didn’t answer. And one night that cat didn’t come scratching at my window. I kind of wondered and worried about that, ’cause he’d never failed to come to me before. And in the morning I didn’t see him. My mother said that he knew we were going to leave him, so he was sad and ran away. Cats just know.

Your mother probably gave him away and didn’t have the guts to tell you, Tyler thought.

You want another beer, Irene? he said. Here’s to fetal alcohol syndrome!

Oh, Henry, I’m feeling — I don’t know how I’m feeling. Can we please please finish? I want to go home and lie down…

Irene…

I don’t know. I’ve almost had it with everything.

And John?

He’s good at digging into everything. I used to tell my parents and they’d say trust your busband, but they are not saying trust your husband anymore. He’s taken away all my credit cards. He takes all my paycheck. He’s never satisfied. I’m sorry; he’s your brother; maybe you—

You know better than that, Irene.

Can we please please go now? I want to lie down. I want to go to bed.

Irene was supposed to meet him on Union Street. He stood waiting in front of the shop with the phony picket fence below the window. Inside lay a long narrow glass table whose legs were naked bronze women bending backward and supporting the top with their outstretched arms. Behind the table he perceived stained glass lamps (he didn’t know whether they were real Tiffanys or not,) and green drinking glasses like magnifying lenses. — He looked at his watch. — Another shop window boasting of gold-ivied dinner plates as round and white as the breasts of a girl with whom he’d once gone skinnydipping in high school, a shy girl who probably never undressed except at night, for her skin had been as pale and perfect as a hardwood floor kept under a ratty old carpet. In the next window he saw a cat made of milk-porcelain, watching herself in the mirror, a seven-drawer lingerie chest in the Queen Anne style on sale for $279.00—how many pairs of underpants did a woman need, to take up seven drawers? Next was the window of the optometrist’s shop, whose many double lenses, yes, those, too, reminded him of breasts.

Irene had not arrived. He went to the espresso bar and ordered a double shot. The coffee soon began to kick in, rewarding him with a pleasantly twitchy feeling. He went out and looked for her black Volkswagen Rabbit but didn’t see it. The orange and white # 45 bus with its long feelers drank from wires and disappeared, and that moment he knew that she was not going to show up. A watch-gaze: Forty minutes late. Irene was never late.

He began to walk east, toward the Tenderloin, and suddenly right in front of the next coffeehouse or maybe the next he met a grizzled grimy panhandler whose hands were streaked with blackish-grey, as if human flesh, like the silver it so often sells for, could tarnish; and the panhandler said: Can you give me anything?

Why, sure I can, said Tyler, grateful that for the next twenty to thirty seconds that heavy sadness in his chest and the nervousness in the cesspool of his churning stomach and the anger against Irene that dwelled behind his eyes might not be felt. He turned out his pocket, finding three dimes, which he gave the man, for the first time looking into his face. But the panhandler was gazing far beyond him. Tyler would never see what he saw.

Past Buchanan the shops were not so fancy, the jewelry plated rather than solid, the shop windows weary with glass eggs or glass snail shells or cast ballerinas whose tits he could barely see. Skinny, hairy-legged joggers headed back toward their medium-rent apartments, clutching freshly purchased cappuccinos and raspberry-papaya smoothies, emanations of royalty.

He gazed down the gentle slope between white houses that led to the Marina district where John and Irene lived.

When he got to the next pay phone he reached into his pocket and then remembered that he’d given all his change to that panhandler. He went into the corner deli and bought a candy bar with a dollar bill. They gave him two quarters back. He dialled.

Yes? said his brother before the second ring.

Hello, John, he said as mildly as he could.

What did you have to do with this? said the cruelly level voice.

His heart sank. — What do you mean?

Don’t lie to me ever again, said John in the weariest voice that he had ever heard. I just don’t have any more time for your lies.

Tyler thought for a moment. Then he hung up the phone, changed another dollar, and called his mother, who also answered before the second ring.

How’s everything, Mom?

His mother began to cry. — Oh, Henry, she wept. John just called. Oh, poor, poor Irene.

Tyler’s car still smelled of flowers. Just before driving down to Los Angeles, he’d stopped at a florist’s in the Mission and filled the back seat with funeral wreaths upon double plastic bags of melting ice.

A blonde salesgirl stood outside of a bridal shop, leaning against one of the parted steel shutters and smoking a cigarette. Her windows screamed with whiteness.

Previously Tyler had allowed himself to blueprint the structure of a future life lonely but not unpleasant, a life of sitting on empty bleachers on Sundays and holidays, gazing unseeing through the mesh of some park fence, politely oriented toward the baseball diamond upon which shouting Little Leaguers might or might not be practicing as he listened to the crows declaim: Ewww, ewww! in demagogic accents — not a bad life at all, a privileged one, in fact, a thickening-around-the-middle life of birthday cards to nieces and nephews, of going to movies; maybe he’d take up fine art photography in earnest some day. He already had the equipment and the technique; it sounded less tedious than jerking off into the locator fluid. And John and Irene would have their mixed-race children, the ones to whom on birthdays he’d send stupid cards; Irene, who’d owned cats as a child, but always wanted a dog, would have a German shepherd or maybe a border collie by then — the eternal Mugsy. Irene and John could visit Tyler’s mother in the nursing home in which she’d surely be settled, if in fact she were still above the dirt. Tyler himself would accordingly be free to relocate. His needs were low; perhaps he couldn’t live on three hundred a year, like the Unabomber, but ten grand per annum might well see him through. — No more photography, then, and no fancy women — maybe a bottle of bourbon when he wanted it. His grandfather had done nicely on Black Velvet. In the old man’s accounts of his vacations, whiskey of some sort would always figure. — I remember when Elma and I took a trip out to Salt Lake in a Pullman car, he’d say. Those were good times, Henry; you can’t imagine how good. Elma liked to rest, of course, so I’d sit with her and we’d have a few nips, and then when I got sick of that, why, I’d leave her alone and head to the dining car, order a couple shots… — Now his grandfather was dead. Life passed, full of passions like a van crammed with shouting dogs; every year there’d come another Easter without a resurrection, a Fourth of July without children or hot dogs or fireworks, a silent telephone, every month half a dozen bills in the mail.

He knew that twice a year, for ever on, at New Year’s and on August ninth, which was Irene’s birthday, relatives would clip the errant grassblades from around the corners of her headstone where the mowers of the sexton’s office hadn’t reached, polish the slab with window-cleaner, seat themselves upon a blanket, and sing hymns. She’d be well taken care of.

Taylor Street was full of cars and people in white summer shirts. They almost blinded him, like angels. He drove on.

In the O’Farrell Street parking garage a fat man whose tie was wrapped around his neck came strutting down the white line that spiraled along the path of waiting cars. Ugly cubical lanterns hung in immense grottos, and parking attendants waved their white sleeves.

Tyler got out and locked the car. It was a very hot day. A woman was yelling and sobbing on the pay phone. When she was finished, he dialled John and Irene’s number to see whether Irene’s voice might still be on the answering machine.

Hello? said John curtly.

Tyler hung up.

He’d forgotten that it was a Saturday. No wonder downtown was so crowded. With tentative steps he approached the fresh-smelling, faintly mysterious hedge-walls which ran along the perimeter of Union Square and walled the upsloping sidewalks which comprised the inlets of that park. A Peruvian quartet was playing there. The mandolinist was tight-lipped and intense — difficult to believe so sullen-seeming a fellow could produce such sweet sounds. The drummer, who wore a pillbox hat, kept gazing searchingly about him as he played. Of the other two men Tyler could not glimpse their features as he strode past. Some weary tourist ladies, one very fat and in purple, sat waiting, probably for the more energetic members of their family or other sociological cluster to finish shopping; they applauded the Peruvians from time to time because they were well-mannered ladies, but their expressions of stranded desolation never altered. Their lives were passing, tvacations trickling through the hourglass; moment by moment this warmish blue San Francisco day was being wasted. They sat beneath lush palm-trees, and distantly a trolley-car sounded its bell as he heard the ladies talking about grilled cheese sandwiches; then he was past them and could not hear anymore. (He called his answering machine: No messages.) The Peruvians had ceased. Some moving object, toy-red, caught his eye — an armored car. He wondered which parking garage it patronized. Now the Peruvians had begun again, a sweet song whose flute-wails did indeed remind him of mountains, although if their placard had said that they were Plains Indians instead he might have imagined open spaces. The melody dwindled behind him as he ascended the walkway to the high ground of seated ones and teeming pigeons, more hedges and then the pigeon-adorned column whose base said SECRETARY OF THE NAVY; he’d never taken the time to read the rest, and learn the significance of it. He sat down. A white girl in shorts, with nice breasts and a birthmark on the back of her thigh, hurried quickly past, almost goose-stepping, leaving him with the impression of a bland blurred face half obscured by chestnut hair. Was he the only one who looked at anybody? In the Tenderloin they always gave you the once-over as you went by; here they studied the sky, like astronomers, or watched the children whose hands they held, or spied out the reflections of their destinations upon their moving shoe-toes; let’s not forget that the seated ones had their blizzards of pigeons to watch.

It’s not at all impossible that John will marry again, he thought to himself. In fact, it’s very likely. When that happens, I’d better keep my distance. I’d better move away…

He wondered whether Irene’s parents had insisted on paying for the cemetery plot. She used to go to them in secret for money when she faced some unexpected expense, being afraid to importune John. But John did have that emergency backbone which during crises he could slip into his otherwise hollow spine. Tyler rather thought that he must have donned his most noble and generous armor so that no one could reach him, refusing to let Irene’s family contribute financially or in any other way, unless, as was plausible, they had gotten to choose the minister — their own, most likely. It was impossible to know who’d won, and Tyler couldn’t ask. When he’d offered to help, John had only said: I don’t need anything from you, Hank.

The sunshine felt uncomfortably warm upon his temples. A grey-haired man trudged by, clutching a sweater; out of the side of his eye Tyler saw the man stop to thrust an arm deep into the garbage can, peering, his mouth open. Then he shot suspicious looks at life and went on. Pigeons crawled and thronged. A long Muni bus eased down Stockton Street with a series of squeaks, and passed into shade.

Tyler got up and inspected the column. He read: CAPTURE OR DESTROY THE SPANISH FLEET…

Reflected palm-tendrils swerved and curved in the windows of Macy’s, and skyscrapers’ terraces swelled and bowed there as if in the throes of an immense explosion. The Peruvians’ music, gentle and strangely liquid, seemed the appropriate solvent for this image of dissolution.

Irene and John’s marriage endured for almost four years. Tyler cherished the conviction that according to some divine calendar she hadn’t been his brother’s wife for nearly as long as that, but he was equally certain that he had known Irene much, much longer than four years, which only went to show how inferior to locator fluid was certainty. As long as he could remember, he’d relieved his thoughts every now and then from reality’s blind bonds — a sort of recreation which possessed no power to harm him if he kept simultaneous sight of actuality, ideal and the angle of deflection between them; which is only to say that he trusted himself, not merely because he had to, but because he knew himself so well.

He remembered the first time that he had really been alone with Irene. It was a month or two before the wedding, and Irene, whose car was still in the shop because her sister had borrowed it and hit a lamppost, animated his ruby answering machine light to say that she needed somebody to drive her to the Kobletz outlet, where she and John planned to register. Tyler had been suprised when John, whom he met for lunch, explained that he was too busy; of course John was always busy, but one would have thought that a man so in love with suits and neckties would also be fascinated by the dinner service upon which he and his wife might someday entertain special clients — that is, rich people, whose nature John and Irene, or at least John, hoped progressively to assume. But Mr. Singer was shouting for the Knightman brief, and Tyler, between jobs as usual, had agreed, partly out of the sense of guilt which John usually inspired in him, and partly because it felt honorable, novel and almost titillating to act for the first time in the capacity of brother-in-law; his mother would be happy, too: she always wanted for him and John to get along better. At that time Irene had not made a great impression on him, his attitude scarcely stretching beyond the scrupulously benign. He remembered that as soon as they reached the showroom she’d needed to go in search of a restroom, and he’d sat observing a young couple who’d also come to register bone china for their wedding. The man had a weary, somewhat loutish face. He seemed ill at ease in his big boots, which fortunately made no mark upon the carpet. Tyler could see that he would not be the one to initiate divorce proceedings. Introverted and browbeaten, he might possibly be driven into a fling in three or four years’ time, or the bride might openly take a lover and end matters, but he himself, merely reactive, would wait for the axe to fall. The bride, a slender chestnut blonde, strutted about with a little smile on her face. The bridegroom followed her everywhere while she paced and swooped with tiny delighted cries. Awkwardly, he tried to put his arms around her, but she threw off that embrace with annoyance. Then he retreated to a table in a little thicket of that crystal forest, where he gazed moodily upon the plates and saucers of his future, yawning. The bride bestowed upon everybody, even Tyler, little smiles of rapture. Finally she returned to her groom, knelt beside him, and slipped her arm lightly around his neck as she commenced showing him plates. But he wore a glum face now which could not change. Offended, she retired across the table, and then the pair gazed silently at their knuckles until the saleswoman came. Standing over them, this muse began to reveal arcane principles while they gazed up at her lips like obedient schoolchildren, the girl thrilled to memorize the lesson (which probably had to do with prices), the boy afraid not to. This too was life, this charnel-house of cream pitchers rather than herpid flesh; it was the market, which must be respected.

Irene having returned with smiling apologies, and the other couple deducted from the scene, the saleswoman presently approached. Tyler still thought it strange that John was not there. But Irene already had a good idea of what she wanted. Perhaps John had given her instructions.

There’s your platter, salad plate, gravy boat, very unusual looking, said the saleslady. So there’s your basic picture. The covered vegetable is two-sixty; the platter is one-forty-five. Did you want to make a purchase today?

No, we’re just looking today, said Irene with surprising timidity.

Okay. Well, there’s a four dollar charge in tax. But you’re asking me to hold everything here, which must be respected.

Yes, said Irene.

When’s the day? said the saleslady with a whore’s grin, realizing, as any whore not too far gone sometimes will, that she had pressed the pecuniary side of the matter too quickly.

February twenty-seventh, said Irene, slipping her arm around Tyler’s neck.

That was the first time that she had ever touched him. He would not forget.

You know what we’ll do, said the saleslady, if it’s a hardship on anybody to call, we’ll work with you. We’ll call ’em right back. You can verbally pass that along. We always understand people on fixed incomes (this with a glance at Tyler’s grubby shirt). We’ve been in business since the sixties.

Do you think it’s too expensive? Irene whispered in his ear.

If the Crania is too much, we also have the Slovenia and the Russell, said the saleslady, who evidently had good hearing.

Tyler felt ill at ease. — Maybe we should call John, he said.

John? Who’s John? said the saleslady with sudden shrillness. You two are getting married and you can’t even decide for yourselves?

Pink spots appeared in Irene’s cheeks, and she squeezed his hand. Her hand was burning.

My assets are tied up in stock, John would have said. John would have gazed swiftly and critically at everything, with owlish eyes. Not even a solid platinum gravy boat would have satisfied him. But he would make a good husband in certain respects. Alert, cautious and solvent, he’d exemplify the phrase “to husband one’s resources.” Fat-jowled and pigheaded though he’d certainly become, he’d help Irene die rich.

You think we should call him? said Irene.

Oh, forget it, said Tyler.

It’s two-ninety for the burgundy, the saleswoman was saying. Now, what are we doing about the registry?

It’s a little hard for me, Irene was saying. Can we just write up an order and decide if we’re going to go through with it?

Sure, said the saleswoman. Now, we’re going to need your name, address and telephone number.

He heard the fat, gentle saleswoman at the next table saying of every choice: Oh, that’s pretty.

What did they all signify, these pale blank plates which stimulated no desire in him? Irene doubtless felt the same way about the vaginas of Turk Street or Capp Street. It was not what the commodity was, but the fact that it existed in so many varieties, each available, each with its own signature and price, so that choosing became a weariness. He wondered what effect this must have upon a person who became accustomed to believing that joy consisted of selecting and collecting one’s bought pleasures. This way of living sometimes struck him as monstrously evil. And yet Domino and the crazy whore were hardly happier. It was not that he objected to people enjoying their cutlery; it was the knowingness, the connoisseurship without enjoyment, the wastefulness of it all that depressed him.

On the way home he let her drive for the practice she said she wanted, and the separation between gas pedal and brake compelled her slender thighs apart. He sat there wanting to put his hand there, but didn’t. A billboard said: YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY. When they got to the apartment where she lived with John, she kissed him many, many times on the mouth, but with closed lips. He wanted to lick her throat and didn’t.

The sound that the first shovelful of dirt had made when it hissed down upon her coffin, more or less where her chest must have been, was, he supposed, much less definitive than the clank of china being set upon a glass shelf.

It was a beautiful, beautiful service, his mother had said. I was so sorry that you couldn’t attend.

Bloodshot tail-lights of squat cars toiled up the Marina hill. The Union Street fair had just closed for the night, and on the sidewalk he saw giggly girls in short skirts drinking beer from plastic cups, attended by boyish fraternity types, one of whom, exultantly drunk, leaped onto the hood of Tyler’s car at the intersection, squatted, and gibbered at Tyler through the windshield. Making a peace sign, Tyler put the car in first and slowly let the clutch out. The young man hooted, and admiring girls laughed with their mouths open. The car began to increase its speed; the boy swayed, half-leaped, half-tum-bled off; from the looks of things he’d sprained his ankle. Tyler made a quick right to get away from them all, and then a left on Broadway, passing in due course the Broadway Manor Motel where for hire he had once broken up still another marriage. Following a black stretch limo through Chinatown, he felt suddenly nauseated by his own negative mediocrity, which had not only prevented him from doing anything good or important, such as making Irene happy, or getting her to love him, let alone saving her life, but actually compelled him to acts of petty evil. The Mark of Cain! He asserted that John was not a good person, either, but since John could not do much about that, having come from the womb ungood (and he also recognized that others, such as Celia, or his mother, or Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer, dealt with his brother almost without irritation — a notable fact, tending to convict one Henry M. Tyler of prejudice), Tyler granted his own utter lack of justification in having, for instance, made advances to his brother’s wife.

He turned into the Tenderloin. Secrets wept behind grilles’ richly patterned speckles of pure silver and pure black, which resembled the pewter beads in the store called Gargoyle on Haight and Masonic. Once Irene had asked him how he went about his work in bad neighborhoods, and he’d said: You go in during the day, figure out where you’re going. And, sure, you’ll go back during the night, but you’re pretty much in a direct line, you know where you’re going, although of course it remains pretty fluid and things can always go south on you.

But I worry about you! she’d said.

Oh, my stuff is all sportcoat and tie, he’d lied.

He drove back and forth on Turk Street, looking for the Queen.

It was very foggy that night outside his apartment. Tyler poured himself a shot of tequila, no salt, no lime, with the phone trapped between right ear and upraised right shoulder as he said: Oh, I’ll hire that stuff out if you make it worth my while. I’m kind of a one-man operation here. To do good surveillance you really need three players on the team. No, my prices aren’t really that competitive. In all honesty, I can’t recommend my services. You might try Stealth Associates. All right. All right. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for calling. Uh huh. That’s right. Good luck.

He tore a details description sheet off the pad and wrote:

SEX female

RACE ?? [African-American?]

AGE ??

No shit, Sherlock, he said with a laugh.

He was afraid to turn off the light. In his mid-thirties, he had by strange starts developed a skin disease which prevented him from thoroughly sleeping anymore. He’d doze off for a couple of hours, and then a sensation as sharp and sudden as being stuck with a red-hot needle would awaken him, his heart clanging with panic. But it was not pain that he felt, but itching. The first dermatologist was too busy to see him for two months, and the second (or, I should say, the second’s receptionist) estimated that it would be at least a month and a half before the meeting of minds, so he went to a G.P. who said that it was scabies and charged him a hundred and twenty dollar consultation fee and wrote a prescription for an ointment that didn’t work at all. Every night he woke up scratching his legs and stomach until they bled. Sometimes his arms itched, or the insides of his ears. The next doctor said that it was atopic dermatitis, and prescribed a moisturizing cream which worked for about two weeks, until the itching suddenly proclaimed its malicious midnight presence. After that he adopted a routine. For three nights he’d scratch and fight with his flesh. On the fourth, too exhausted to carry on, he’d take a sleeping pill. Soon he became habituated and had to double up his medication and then switch to ever stronger brands. Finally a whore told him to try Vaseline, which worked like a charm. But sometimes he still awoke itching. He was afraid that tonight would be like that.

PECULIARITIES??

ALIASES Queen, Maj

CONFEDERATES Domino [??], Strawberry [??], Kitty [??], unnamed mentally unstable prostitute [??]

That afternoon in the Tenderloin he’d glimpsed the blonde hooker, Domino, wandering into a nasty little watering hole called the Wonderbar, and so under the rubric SUSPECTED LOCALITIES he wrote: Parking garage on Turk & Larkin, Tenderloin core area, Capp St/Mission core area [16th-20th Sts], Wonderbar [??].

His stomach rumbled. He sighed, shook a clattering tombstone batch of frozen spicy chicken drumsticks onto a glass plate, and microwaved them for four minutes. When he opened the microwave, sour orange grease flecked every wall. The drumsticks were overcooked on the outside and frozen on the inside. He gnawed them all down to their icy bony cores and microwaved them again for sixty-nine seconds. By then, he already felt queasy, so he set the plate on the counter and sat down again by the details description sheet.

He had a dream that he went to a whorehouse in Chinatown. It was a strangely white dream, so that the crowds of Chinese women and girls toting bulging plastic bags of just-bought produce, and the little boys reading comics, all wore the same tints one sees in San Francisco on a sunny foggy morning, with the low white house-cubes of the Sunset under fog, and the silver tracks of morning enlightening all the pale houses of Noe Valley. Chinese kids in white trousers and white T-shirts banged drums and cymbals lazily with a muffled sound, carrying a dragonhead and subsequent dragontrain which they didn’t bother to get under. Outside City Lights Bookstore they set off firecrackers which flashed white light. In the dream it must have been around noon. Where was he exactly? Perhaps not far from the future headquarters of the Hang On Tong Society, because the tall narrow cave-arch of rainbow graffiti (a white rainbow, of course) weighed him down with familiarity. The place had just opened. He discovered himself to be in a room which resembled a restaurant, although it was not a restaurant, and the waiters were just taking the white chairs down from the white tables. Now the prostitutes entered single file. They were so pure, so impossibly beautiful that for a moment he could not breathe. While they had Asian features, their complexions were paper-white (probably because the previous day Tyler had been studying Jock Sturges’s books of photographic nudes, in which flesh was rendered either paper-white or marble-white). Their loveliness stupefied him. For a long time he couldn’t make up his mind which girl to take. Then suddenly he saw one who was even more beautiful than the rest She stood a little apart from them, and she was white like snow. They called her the White Court. It cost three hundred and fifty dollars to be with her, which was more than he had ever spent, but when he paid white cash at the registration desk, the clerk told him that he had a full twenty-four hours; he didn’t have to leave her until ten minutes before noon the following day. A stunning excitement resonated within him and echoed. This time he would finally get to know another soul. He’d be with her, talk to her, listen to her, memorize every episode of her life, know her in every possible way.

She went ahead to get ready. Then a woman came to show him the way. He was following her when he saw his brother. Tyler wanted to believe that it wasn’t he, because it was so incongruous to see him there and because it ruined his plans. But John addressed him by name. He was sitting at a table working, as always, or perhaps reading the newspaper, which in the dream came to the same thing. It seemed he’d established himself here only for the atmosphere. Tyler said: Well, I guess you know what I’m here for. — Go to it, John said wearily. He chatted with John for a few more minutes, because that was only right. Then he saw that the woman who had been going to lead him to the White Court had already disappeared down the hall. He’d paid, but she hadn’t waited for him. He ran down the corridor, but couldn’t find her.

The whorehouse was beginning to get busy. A young man in a suit said to the clerk: I’ll take the White Court, please. — Tyler realized that his reservation was already cancelled.

Later he went out with another prostitute who was friends with the White Court, an ordinary woman who did not hasten his heart. He asked her what the White Court thought of him. She said: My friend said you didn’t do much with her. You held her hand, but then you did nothing but read the newspaper.

Brady called his machine and said: Know who this is? I think you do. Well, you’re through. No hard feelings, but I’m tired of paying for nothing. I could have found that parking garage without you, and what’s more, there’s never anybody home! I’m sorry for you, so I’m going to tack a little consolation check onto your fee after you send me your bill, but make sure you have receipts to back everything up…

John called his machine and said: There’s something I need to talk to you about. — Tyler erased that message.

His mother called his machine and said: I just wanted to see how you were doing, honey. — He called her but she wasn’t in.

A Mrs. Bickford called his machine to request a confidential appointment. Tyler wrote her number down.

A drunk called his machine and said: Goddamn you old goddamn you old goddamn.

The landlord called his machine to let him know that the toilet was working very nicely, in case he hadn’t noticed. He called the landlord’s machine and said thank you.

At Judgment Day we’ll all slide our jellyrotted flesh back onto our bones just as a street-whore slips her undies back on while she’s sitting at the edge of the bed, getting ready to go; and then time will crash like the hotel door splintering under the blows of God’s cops who’ve come to execute their bench warrant — back to the Hall of Justice for summary judgment, so that Satan can boil the flesh back off of us forever! Can there be judgment without pain? I would say not. Until the verdict, the soul must wait in fear; fear is a sort of pain. And Tyler, whose apartment windows were already fog-darkened, waited and waited for some exception to absolve him from rules, before the ultimate judgment devoured him. Lodging his pistol beneath his left armpit, he rose, dimmed down the brightness of his computer monitor because he had never felt like spending forty dollars on a screen saver, turned off the kitchen light, turned on the bedroom light, donned his windbreaker, locked up the apartment, descended the wet grey stairs, and drove away. He wasn’t desperate, merely bored. He wanted to do something new. Some homeowners study grass-seed, until lawnsmanship comes naturally; thus they while away the time before decomposition. Renters tend to be disinclined toward that solution. As for Tyler, rolling into North Beach, passing the purple neon waterfall behind the sign for Big Al’s, he decided that he ought to take up reading again. It might distract him. He admired his mother for all her book-knowledge, although she knew little of life, which was probably better anyway. In his past at home there had been much quarreling with raised voices, in the streets so many possessed souls attacking bodies, uttering demonic screams. No matter whether you sought the world out or hid from it, something would get you. — His friend Ken the wedding photographer used to jocularly shout at the cronies of some bridegroom: He’s been married so many times he’s got rice scars! and that was funny, but when he thought about it, it actually became not so funny because all the living had scars and then they got wounds, and more scars, and more wounds, until they died. That was a given, but didn’t anything lie beyond that? His mother was happy enough reading. She’d garnered wisdom of a harmless sort, like a philatelist’s, and taught him how to get it for himself. Tenderly he remembered the evenings that he’d sat beside John on the sofa and she’d read to them both from the Narnia books, the dog looking up, interestedly twitching its legs, and in bed he’d close his eyes and see the characters running silently upon the stageboards of his inner skull, while John cleared his throat in the darkness next door. Later his mother had bought them the whole set of Hardy Boys novels with their matching spines, and he had enjoyed them even more than John. He owned a gift for telling how the plots would turn out. Perhaps it was then that he wanted to be a detective. Use iodine fumes to reveal indented writing, he learned. Chloral hydrate is knockout drops. The Hardy Boys had made interfering with other people’s business into something exciting and brave; they never had to fill out surveillance forms, and their adversaries were always evil, unlike the Japanese banker’s wife in the Nikko Hotel who’d screamed and tried to cover herself when she’d seen his long lens against the window, while her lover fled to the bathroom; imploringly she clasped her hands; what had she ever done to Tyler? After that, he’d always felt sick when he took infidelity cases, the gaping mouth of the banker’s wife remaining impressed on his brain’s pavement like skid marks on an accident scene (they actually begin disappearing within minutes, which is why the well-prepared detective photographs them through a polarizing filter). And yet no unpleasant taste had troubled his soul when he’d brought Irene to the Kabukicho restaurant that time so long ago now, making use of the Japanese banker’s embossed silver card! Maybe he could not afford unpleasant impressions. Why, in that case, did he feel so downcast now? Turning down Columbus, he achieved the Susie Hotel with the four red ideograms upon its sign, and cool greenish-yellow brightness upstairs behind the curtained windows. He made a right, and fortune granted him a parking place in front of some littered apartment complex or housing project behind an immense gate. A pay phone hung in a steel box out front. He called his answering machine. No messages.

With John’s Minox in one well-zipped jacket pocket and his pistol in the other (his armpit had gotten sore), he entered City Lights to seek out the ink-scented whiteness between the thighs of books, and just across from the register stopped to survey the tall, narrow surrealism shelf of paperbacks: The Heresiarch, Maldoror, Irène’s Cunt, My Last Sigh, The Tears of Eros, The Jade Cabinet… For sentimental reasons he opened Irène’s Cunt and read: Irène is like an arch above the sea. I have not drunk for a hundred days, and sighs quench my thirst. That made him feel almost happy — why, he could not have said. But he was well accustomed to situations in which not all the facts could be explained.

In the checkerboard-floored poetry room where people sniffled and shuffled (the turning pages, surprisingly, were silent) he gazed out the window at the sparkling barbed-wire stars of neon rushing round the Hungry I outside (LOVE MATES, said the sign), accompanied by more neon, cars, and whistlers. A couple faced the wall of poetry, and the man said: Honey, one of the greatest, uh, Mexican writers is Carlos Fuentes. Have you read him? — The woman sighed. — I tried, she said.

A young blonde clutched her throat as she wandered in silence from Bao Ninh to Edward Lurie; when she squatted down to touch the spine of Dreams of the Centaur he saw a single strand of grey hair in the back of her head. It seemed to him that if he only found the right book to suckle from, he would be saved.

Another woman seated herself at one of the little round tables, pulled at her lower lip, and waited, or thought. Outside, a bus ground by. Someone uttered a quiet laugh. The shadows of browsers moved upon the floor.

With his hundred dollars’ worth of books in a paper bag he strolled up Columbus that hot night and found a new smoothie place with blue and pink tinted surrealist Rubenesque nudes on the walls, naked angels swimming in pastel clouds. A yawning old Chinese man passed the open window, and then, emerging strangely from the glare of a hotel sign, a drunk yelled: Smoothies, man! reached in, yanked a flower from a potted plant, and looped onward in the direction of City Lights, swinging the neck of his bottle with the same happy expressiveness of possession as the young lesbian a moment later who neared and vanished, twining her fingers ruthlessly in another girl’s hair.

I don’t want anything sweet, Tyler said to himself. Let me get something that’s good for me.

For a dollar twenty-five he ordered a urine-sample-like cup of wheatgrass juice, as emerald as ferric oxalate; it tasted, unsurprisingly, like liquid grass. — Well, I hope this does something, he thought.

The beverage, thick and bubbly like spit, vastly bored him. He gulped it down quickly and went back to the car. No messages on his answering machine. A police van hunkered black and blocky at the corner, its antenna bent back timidly. He did not feel ready to sleep. Why not drive? Tonight the Broadway tunnel was bright and empty, only one stern cyclist with blinking red lights at his heels to share with Tyler that echoing dismalness. At Polk and Broadway a traffic jam compelled one driver to yell: Fuck, fuck, fuck! — Tyler made a face. Fillmore: hill and hill, and then twin light-lines with car-lights in between, black bay ahead, and then the lights of Marin — Tiburon or Sausalito? He suddenly wasn’t sure. On Lombard Street two men were grinning and heil Hitlering at passing cars. Chestnut: He stared back into the glowing red traffic eye… Without much reason he swung left on this street, passing the Horseshoe Tavern where John had once bought him drinks, and then a juice bar where he used to meet John and Irene; here was the bank machine on Pierce where Irene used to come before she went shopping; here was the Chestnut Street Grill, which John said was no good (Tyler had never tried it); Laurel’s toy store, Scott, Divisadero, then apartment buildings rising fog-colored in the dark… He was wasting his life.

His friend Mike Hernandez in Vice called his machine and said: Listen, chum, as far as I’m concerned, rumors of the Queen’s existence have been greatly exaggerated. Not much comes out of that parking garage except the odd D.U.I. Well, I guess it’s always good for the occasional blowjobbing or flatbacking bust, but there haven’t even been too many of those lately. Sometimes I catch ’em across the street. If there is a Queen, you know who might know about it, uh, what’s his name, uh, Dan Smooth; you don’t wanna—

The machine beeped and cut Mike Hernandez off.

Hernandez called again. — Right, well, as I was saying, we don’t use him if we don’t have to, but the guy knows a lot. Lemme see if I have his… Hell, kind of a mess here. You know who might — no, screw that, just try the Sacramento listings, although I sometimes see him drinking by himself in North Beach. Anyway, gotta go, buddy; good luck with it. Gimme a—

The machine cut him off.

John called his machine and said: Disregard my other message. I don’t need to talk to you after all.

Brady called his machine and said: Listen, this is you know who; I forgot to say if you have any more of those surveillance reports, enclose those with your bill; I need ’em for my files.

The red light winked slyly. Outside he heard the finger-on-picket-fence sound of a key in a car lock.

The dental hygienist called his machine and said: Mr. Tyler, this is Marlene at Dr. Kinshaw’s office, and we have you scheduled for Tuesday for your six-month checkup and cleaning. Could you please call me if you have any problems in keeping that appointment? If not, I’ll look forward to seeing you on Tuesday at 10:30.

Somebody called his machine and didn’t leave a message.

Somebody did the same thing, again and again.

In the waxed faux-marble corridors of the municipal court building in Sacramento, double rows of reflected ceiling lights distorted themselves from circles into ovoids, and the jurors sworn, potential and alternate sat (the lucky early birds) or leaned against the walls, professional types complaining about how business was going to hell in their absence, while retirees declaimed about their children or the state of public schools today. A leggy woman looked around helplessly, then finally seated herself upon her briefcase, knees straining together as she sipped from a carton of chocolate milk. — I was raised a Catholic, and even I had second thoughts, the lady beside her said.

The door to Department Forty opened, and inside Tyler saw the table where the greasy-haired defendant, a boy, sat slumped beside a maternal public defender. Beside them swaggered the bailiff with his hands on his hips. Ceiling lights reflected on the D.A.’s balding forehead. The D.A. looked very pleased with himself. It must be an open-and-shut case of rape or something of the sort, yes, something unsavory, because old Dan Smooth, dressed in his Sunday best, was still sitting in the hall, waiting to be called as an expert witness.

Yeah, what’re you going to do for me, bub? he said. You’re Henry Tyler. Are you going to do for me what old John Tyler did for the Whigs?

Got time to meet me for a drink later this afternoon, Mr. Smooth?

Well, uh, Henry, I don’t know how long this shindig is going to last. And I did say what’re you going to do for me?

I’ll pay for the drinks.

Not good enough. Everybody wants to buy old Dan Smooth a drink. All the chippies are vying for the privilege of… What do I need your alcohol for?

Mike Hernandez down in San Francisco tells me you’re a very honest and generous man, Tyler hazarded.

He does, now, does he? Doesn’t sound like the Mike Hernandez I know, that skinny little…

Daniel Clement Smooth, please, said the bailiff.

Oh, they’re playing my song, said Smooth. I don’t mind telling you that I enjoy it. How about tomorrow? I’ll meet anyone, any time. I’m a democratic kind of guy.

Can’t do it, Mr. Smooth—

Call me Dan.

All right, Dan. I have some business down in L.A.

Mr. Smooth, if you don’t come into the courtroom right now there’s going to be a bench warrant issued, said the bailiff.

All right, Henry, mumbled Smooth. I’ll be at Vesuvio’s in North Beach on Friday round about eight o’clock…

He adjusted his soiled necktie and followed the bailiff importantly inside, bearing a sheaf of photographs in a translucent plastic envelope.

Tyler let out a weary breath.

In the jury pool lounge some were sitting with their heads in their hands, some were reading, a few completing their voir dire questionnaires, and many were good-humoredly laughing, playing cards while bystanders called out advice. Tyler sat down among them for a moment and thought about Irene.

Vesuvio’s, eh? That fancy tourist place? It hardly seemed like a Dan Smooth kind of place. It definitely wasn’t a Tyler sort of place — unless Tyler were trying to impress, entertain, comfort or prey upon Irene. Its Sacramento analogue might be — what? Tyler’s thoughts were covered with mold, like the bluish-purple felt on the pool tables upstairs at the Blue Cue, John’s kind of place, where laughingly incompetent couples paid thirteen dollars an hour to bend and click, the women often saying shit in low voices when they missed, an Asian girl in a black, black miniskirt cleaning up after them, setting the balls back into the triangular form and shaking them, laying the cue ball exactly onto the dot, gathering up used drinks from the long metal bar which guarded an expanse of tall mirror. (Tyler’s kind of place was the Swiss Club, an ancient bar which smelled of cigarette smoke and whose air oozed globules of weak light splashed with booze.)

Dan Smooth didn’t fool him. Dan Smooth was not and never would be the John type, the elegant or snotty professional type. Dan Smooth was the sleazy barfly type, the lowlife type, the Henry Tyler type.

Tyler knew a pretty little exomphalous court clerk who’d once made eyes at him. Every now and then he called her up and asked her for favors. This time when he telephoned, he wanted to know whether he could take her to dinner. It was time for payment, he said. Actually he was hoping to find out more about Dan Smooth. But the girl explained that she had a boyfriend now.

Okay, sweetheart, said Tyler, a little relieved. I’ll cross you off my list.

He had a dream that he and Irene were married and had a child, a slender half-Asian girl whom Irene was teaching how to throw a frisbee for the dog.

It being only Tuesday, Tyler possessed sufficient time to drive down to Los Angeles and back before the appointed day with Dan Smooth. His mother, bored and irritated by her own physical frailty, preferred for the sake of that novelty disguised as familial love to peer anxiously into Tyler’s problems. In short, she did not want him to go away.

I have a little job, he lied. It may be lucrative.

Then shall I call you tonight, dear?

No, I may be out on surveillance all night.

Tell me, Henry, is your work dangerous?

Not really, Mom. I try to avoid the dangerous stuff.

Sit down, said Mrs. Tyler abruptly.

The rust-colored blinds were always down in his mother’s living room, her car keys always on the piano stool. Tyler sighed and took a corner of the sofa. The car keys sparkled. — How are you feeling? he said.

Not very well, replied his mother almost bitterly. And worrying about you makes it worse.

I’m sorry, Mom, he said almost inaudibly. Tell me what I can do.

I want you to make up with John.

I don’t know how much use that would be, said Tyler. Nothing like that ever lasts between John and me. You know we’ve both tried.

But this is different. You know that, my dear.

Tyler was silent.

Henry, said his mother, gazing at him with a sad stern expression which he’d never seen before, I want to ask you something. And I want you to answer me truthfully.

I know what’s coming, her son answered with a crooked smile not unlike Domino’s.

Henry.

Yes, Mom.

Did you and Irene… Henry, did you betray John? You understand what I’m asking.

I understand pretty well, Mom.

Well?

Mom, your question humiliates me. I’ve been humiliated so much lately that I just don’t have much energy to… Can you see how it might hurt me to discuss it, Mom?

Henry, I want to know. I need to know.

It’s too late for that, said Tyler, rising.

For God’s sake! cried Mrs. Tyler, but her son, hanging his head, had already closed the door behind him. A moment later, she heard the coughing ignition of his car.

Sacramento is River City, they say, because it spreads its poisons, sterilities and occasional charms at the confluence of two rivers, but to me it remains Railroad City even if only in my wishful thinking; now it’s Car City and Mall City above all, city of hellish replications of arcades, gas stations, convenience stores, city without a heart, a strangely empty place whose downtown, once sunk down to river level, has turned its nineteenth-century boardwalks and Chinese doss houses into underground passageways invaded mainly by homeless sojourners and addicts of antique bottles (Peet’s Crystal White, The Perfect Family Soap); here, if anywhere, one might think, there’d be “meaning” or “history,” but instead one finds only rat-droppings. Aboveground they don’t care. The big developers try to keep the homeless out of their vacant lots; the city bureaucrats fine the developers whenever the homeless do get in and damage the public’s chain-link fences; and come summer most citizens get paralyzed by the ghastly sun, sitting indoors with sweat running down their cheeks — time then to go shopping or away. Come winter comes the rain, which fails to clean those graffiti-whitened fences outside the dwindling boxcar yards. The railroad tramps survive or not, uttering their wet, hacking coughs. And the street pimps sometimes use the slang phrase to pull a train, which means to mount as many women as a man desires. Meanwhile, the trains themselves crawl on ever more weakly, hidden among blackberries with flies all around. It’s been written that Sacramento only became the capitol thanks to sleazy railroad politics, whose expedient calculus of charging for freight poundage times distance required that this so-called destination city be erected in the middle of nowhere, to maximize that distance. As the city grew, so would demand; so would poundage. It all paid off. The long exposures of antique cameras show us men in top hats shaking hands, men in brimmed caps (the workers) lounging on top of locomotives. Here’s an old poster for the Sacramento Valley Railroad Company, whose trains began to run in 1856; by 1865 the Central Pacific Railroad swallowed it, running big cylindrical-nosed locomotives down J Street, locomotives non-aerodynamically boilered and belled in the dirt with their low cow-catchers pointing ahead toward progress, pale hunks of kindling in the open cars just behind. (In a photograph, a pallid figure in railroad livery stands on a high sidestep, his expression washed out to a bleak blankness like that high-noon dirt street streaked and tracked. He’s nobody; he’s Cain.) But Central Pacific, for all its locomotives’ victory wails, lost out to Union Pacific at last. And so another business lay down to sleep. Union Pacific’s yellow passenger cars whose sides read SILVER STATE and MONTEREY and SALINAS VALLEY rolled back and forth between heaven, wherever that may be, and earth, which is Sacramento, pulled by glossy black locomotives. And in innocent complacency over their attainments, the Union Pacific tycoons thought to epitomize Railroad City forever. But now in the oldest grimiest honeycombs of this commercial hive I find dead hollow boxcars; I see bleached ties between rusty tracks. The dank muffled deadness inside empty boxcars swallows history’s echoes. Who cares about history anyway? This is America. Moreover, this is California. I just read in the Sacramento Bee this morning a caution to parents selecting schools for their children: If the library contains any textbook which proclaims: Someday we will put a man on the moon, that book is not only obsolete, but dangerously obsolete, like the wide spaces between buildings and tracks in the old days. How much more so Plato and Kepler, or the near-exterminated California Indians! Everything movable, liquid, alive like long singing trains must someday become immovable like the yellow, frozen wrinkled toes in the Sacramento morgue, which are more lifeless still in juxtaposition to the humming fridge. (This place has the most amazing air flow capacity, a pathologist said to me once. The air pressure’s negative in relation to the rest of the building, you see, so there will be no odor whatsoever!) Yellow toes, and brown toes, hard and stiff, toes under clean white sheets; toes hard like ceramic or plastic, clean and stiff — that’s what we leave to our heirs before reentering the no longer track-streaked dirt we came from. Sacramento leaves its rusty railroads, inanely captioned by those who write for themselves alone. Here’s a message on a boxcar wall: CAIN WAS HERE. An old railroad bum coughs, with bronchitis in his throat. Beneath the scraped paint-layers of color on boxcars I find only cold metal, which someday must rust. Drooping palm trees, long tracks look out from rusty multi-wheeled altars. Sacramento, once I almost hated you for your ignorant plastic conformity, but your rusting boxcars remind me consolingly that all your ages are doomed. I imagine a more happy futurity when the two rivers will play around your toxic ruins, silently transmuting your follies back into dirt.

The railroad age had obtruded itself into Henry Tyler’s boyhood largely through school field trips to the train museum which lurked in the banal commercial cartoon entitled Old Sacramento. John had always liked trains better than he. The boyhood of the two brothers was naturally punctuated by family drives to caves and caverns, Sierra picnics, waterskiing, zoos, rare whitewater rafting trips when finances permitted, factory stores, burger joints. But one can hardly grow up in Sacramento without being aware of the trains. They call at night. They creep to and fro at busy intersections, irritating the drivers who wait in long lines of idling cars. They soak the gravel of the old yards with oil and creosote. The progressive city council fines, squeezes and diminishes them. — We think the Seventh Street punchline is imperative for the development of this city, I’ve heard our mayor say. We’d like an opinion on condemning this site and charging the cost to Union Pacific Railroad. — The grim, sweaty Union Pacific man grips the podium in both hands. He knows that the railroad tracks over Seventh Street are doomed. But once they’re gone for good, they’ll be loved. For now, they’re an annoyance, thwarting the energies of more evolved beings and mechanisms. John, for instance, wouldn’t have shed a tear had all the tracks been ripped out. But on the dresser in his San Francisco apartment he kept a shiny black model of a Southern Pacific locomotive. Irene used to dust it twice a month. Now John wiped it with a handerchief whenever he noticed it, which was far more often than he realized. On the mornings after she had slept there, Celia Caro sometimes emerged from the bathroom wrapped in one of Irene’s terrycloth towels to find him standing with the socks drawer open, holding the toy locomotive in his hand as he polished it caressingly, on his face a sweet and mysterious smile.

Precisely because they had grown up there, in short, the two brothers found Sacramento to be less than wondrous in its railroad character which blessed them almost subliminally with train whistles on long days and long nights — always fewer and fewer of those, and Mrs. Tyler never heard them anymore; they’d visited her as often as her own wish for chocolate. Tyler himself, who was destined, as we shall see, for spectacular railroad wanderings, remained yet ignorant of his susceptibility to trains, although afterward, when the disaster of the Queen of the Whores fastened on him, in league with certain other financial and emotional disasters, he lost the use of his car and began riding the N Judah and the J Church streetcar lines through San Francisco, becoming fascinated by the shiny, almost blue double tracks, which twisted down through hilly parks and then vanished under the ground. He never asked himself why those tracks lured him. But after a while they were wiggling through his dreams.

Who knows? Perhaps Tyler’s desperate freeway drives from Sacramento to Los Angeles and back were motivated not only by his love for the dead woman, but also by a lust for long journeys which the clattering songs of Sacramento trains dripped into his blood. In any event, this latest silent departure of his, which Mrs. Tyler would never forget, came between mother and son for the rest of their lives, like an infinitely long freight train backing between them at some midtown crossroads.

On his return from Los Angeles, where Irene’s grave was doing well on that hot and smoggy day at Forest Lawn with the lawn mowers roaring, Tyler got rewarded with a vandalism investigation case from the owner of an abandoned factory down on Townsend which was being broken into and smashed up night by night. — Sure, I’ll do it, he said. I figure it’ll cost you seven hundred receipted or five hundred under the table. — That’s cool, said the owner. Let’s go with the five. — Tyler, pleased to make headway against his stale credit card bills, drove straight there. His car still smelled of flowers. The owner, who continuously sweated, met him outside and gave him a key. — Kind of dusty in here, Tyler said. You ever get any transients trying to crash the place? Looks sort of un-slept in, though. — You tell me, said the owner. With these vermin chewing their way into my property, who the hell knows? — I was just wondering if the Queen of the Whores bunked here, Tyler said, always hoping to snare two streetbirds with one strategically sticky concretion of intellect, but the owner shrugged. Tyler rented a hundred-foot ladder from the paint store. Ascending this friend of hangmen and impatient heaven-seekers, he felt as if he were sinking rather than rising, because the spiderwebbed swelter compounded as he went, until he had to go back down in order to tie a rag around his nose and mouth. Outside, a truck horn sounded four times, reminding him of Domino. Because the owner did not seem good for more than the five, now already received, he decided to be efficient for once, and so, choking in the spidercrawling dust, he duct-taped to a ceiling beam two camera bodies, one with a fisheye lens attached, and the other sporting his four-hundred-millimeter lens, which he had prefocused at about five and a half feet above floor level. Now for transmitter, radio slave, cables and strobe. Although he stood eighty-odd feet above the ground, the gruesome air pressed on him almost as heavily, he fancied, as the dirt upon Irene in her casket. Gradually this thought of his, which had arisen only innocently, out of the useless loving care of tomb-tenders, gave rise to others worse and worse, until it seemed indeed as if Irene’s pallid face were swimming down toward him from the silken depths of terror between the ceiling beams. The young girl, long-fingered, rich-eyebrowed bride, where was she now? He would not ask who she was or had been. In previous years, having been hired by families in missing persons cases whose agonizing end he’d never allowed himself to foresee, he’d witnessed the talents of Dr. Jasper, chief medical examiner of San Francisco, hence skilled and rapid cutter (his yellow gloves wet with blood as he swigged from a coffee cup, slicing through a corpse’s shiny fatty neck), who could build a clay face out of a murdered man’s skull-cast, then plant artificial hair and glass eyeballs until the flotsam of a life, cracked and vacated seashell on eternity’s beach, lived again, at least in the longing vision of the father or wife upon whom Dr. Jasper must call to identify the dead. But in the darkness around Tyler the opposite sort of being had been conceived and was gestating into loathsomeness. Start not with the skull of her, but with the living Irene of his memories, whom he could see anytime he wished, simply by closing his eyes. Over her dark-eyed face, somebody had slid a bloated mask and was now packing it full of worms. Could this truly be Irene, the one of whom he dreamed? Which Irene now existed? Who waited for him at the end of his mind’s darkly barren turnings? Suppose it were this new other, this stranger! He forced himself to probe himself, like Dr. Jasper withdrawing a little urine from Irene’s bladder as she lay upon the marble slab; urine hissed up into the cylinder of the long syringe. He needed to know precisely this: Why was death so terrible? He could not even comprehend what he feared. Some people are afraid of nonexistence, and others of the actual process of dying. Perhaps what he most dreaded was the prospect of a marriage between life and death. At City Lights he’d dipped into a history of ancient tortures, one of which haunted him before he’d even discovered the crude engraving on the next page: Kill the condemned one’s sweetheart, then enchain him to her until they both rotted. Perhaps he did not love Irene enough, that he could not bear to be with her in this way. The ladder began to tremble. Understanding that it was he who trembled, he calmed himself, constructing a shell around the vision. This moment, which within other moments would lurk forgotten, nonetheless founded his future. He could not yet accept what he feared, but he had taken the first step toward accepting it. It had come, and so he said: Let it come. And the consequence of his courage — we can’t call it a reward, since it was not nice — was the realization that Irene’s death would attaint the remainder of his life. If he could somehow love, not only her, but also her putrefaction, then perhaps he’d win the victory. For now he could not. And so he squeezed the dregs of Irene from his mind, with the same degree of temporary success as if he had squeezed dry a sponge held underwater — as long as his hand remained clenched, new water could be declined — then descended those vibrating aluminum rungs to a plane more greasily substantial, if no less vile, than the hangman’s aerie. Directly beneath the cameras he established his vandals’ bait: a clean-swept floor, crowned by a table piled high with lightbulbs. Then he went out and locked up. Beneath the broken window which must surely be their entrance, he taped up a handwritten sign to goad them: STAY OUT, YOU ANIMALS! He drove back to the paint store and returned the ladder. Then he called his answering machine.

John’s voice, struggling to hold itself back, demanded that he telephone their mother. Brady’s voice inquired after the missing surveillance forms. The voice of his new client, Mrs. Bickford, confirmed her Tuesday afternoon appointment. The voice of a Mr. Okubata proposed a confidential meeting about a marital matter. His landlord’s voice advised him of a two percent rent increase beginning next month.

The White Nile deli on Bryant Street, patronized mainly by construction workers, made excellent roast chicken sandwiches. Tyler had long forgotten who’d told him about the place. He never went out of his way to eat there, but over the years now adding up to decades he’d inserted many pushpins into his mental map of San Francisco, and relied upon them, being a creature of habit, and habit comforted him even more now that Irene was dead: at least the White Nile was still the same. He bought the house special, which they wrapped up for him in white paper for ten cents more than last time. Almost immediately, he realized that he had no appetite. He imagined Irene telling him to eat in order to take care of himself. Then his stubbled jaws slowly moved, and he swallowed. After that, removing once again from its casket his embalmed sense of duty, he drove to a parking lot two blocks away from the factory, reclined his seat, laid out his receiver and radio control unit on the dashboard, then read from the Gnostic Scriptures, which he had purchased at City Lights. He read: Light and darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this, neither are the good good, nor the evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. Again he saw Irene’s face. A worm was born from her nostril. If the Gnostics were correct, he must not reject this. But it was like standing idly by when somebody called her a Chink. He could not believe that the worm did not hurt her, and that he could not help. No doubt she was faded in her coffin, but he’d do what he could to help her look after herself. When it was too dark to see, he merely waited, almost enjoying the background hum of his receiver unit. Not long before midnight he heard a clang, then voices simultaneously echoing, angry, high-pitched and indistinct. Something smashed. The voices became louder. — That ain’t money, not even raw money! a boy was saying. You don’t know shit about money! — Another voice said: Something’s on the table over here. — When Tyler could hear them quite well, he pressed the square button on the radio control unit. In the factory, the flash fired once like a shocking warning. That would make the kids look up. — What the fuck! somebody screamed on the receiver. How many times in his career had he heard such Jeffersonian eloquence? Machine-gunning the strobe, he snapped off thirty-odd frames of film with his remote auto winder, which was slaved to the round button of the radio control unit. Meanwhile he’d started the engine. Of course they threw bricks and rocks, trying to knock the cameras out, but the strobe would have destroyed their night vision. He got some blurry shots which the factory owner later said weren’t good enough to convict, and one excellent frame of the enraged face of a brick-thrower. By then he was approaching the factory window with his headlights on bright and the passenger window down. As the vandals came leaping down in separately silhouetted panics, he leaned out and recorded them on his third camera’s police film, clicking and clicking away until they began throwing bricks at him. Conviction material! Then he shifted into reverse and sped away.

The cops got two of them. The factory owner, vindictive in victory, but perhaps Tyler would have done the same, prosecuted them for malicious mischief. They’d already cost him eight thousand dollars, not counting Tyler’s fee. One boy got off, but the other was already “in the system,” as lawyers love to say: two prior convictions for graffiti, and a current bench warrant for probation violation. They threw him in jail for thirty days until his hearing, then administratively revoked his probation. He served six months more behind bars. The factory owner told all this to Tyler, who would rather not have known. And yet he did not believe himself to be guilty of anything. He despised the random, cowardly nihilism of the vandals. Moreover, he hadn’t called the police when they were inside the factory; he’d given them a sporting chance. Perhaps that was the source of his qualmishness: He had taken no stand. But must he take a stand on everything, everytime? It had been just business. And the factory owner was satisfied.

Somebody warned him most threateningly not to take Mrs. Bickford on as a client. Narrowing his eyes, he met her on Tuesday as scheduled, but she didn’t want to hire him anymore; she was too scared, she said. He gave her the name of a battered women’s shelter and wished her luck.

Somebody wanted him to shadow some jurors. — I’d like to help you out, said Tyler in his most friendly voice, but I have all the work I can handle right now. Have you tried Pinkerton’s? Somebody said they specialize in shadowing jurors. I think it’s in their code of ethics.

Somebody down at H.R. Computer in Palo Alto wanted him to try to obtain a chip from their competitor, RoboGraphix. — Well, now, you know that’s illegal, said Tyler. How much can you pay?

Twenty thousand.

Are you recording this call?

What if I tell you I’m not?

I wouldn’t believe you.

What if I told you I was?

I’d figure you were trying to entrap me.

So you don’t want the twenty thousand?

I don’t break the law, period.

And I’m not asking you to break the law.

Dandy, said Tyler. Glad we got that crap out of the way.

By the way, I’m not recording.

I am, Tyler lied with a laugh.

Look, Mr. Tyler, if you—

Do they manufacture on site?

Yes, sir.

Gallium arsenide? That’s a pretty toxic process, I understand.

I believe so.

Well, let me do some looking around. I’ll call you back.

He called up his friend Rod on the force down in Palo Alto, and Rod said that the job wasn’t a sting that he knew of. Be careful, though, was Rod’s unsolicited and unnecessary advice.

He called up RoboGraphix and asked the secretary to send him a copy of the press release on the SBD-9000 chip.

What chip is that, sir? said the receptionist.

I’m on assignment for Computer Currents to write an article about you, said Tyler. It’s all over town that you have a fabulous new chip coming out.

Just a moment, sir. I’ll let you speak with one of our technical staff.

Yeah, who’s this? said the next voice on the line — a weary, suspicious, middle-aged male voice.

Yes, sir, my name is Charles Ångstrom, you know, as in wavelength, and I’m freelancing a piece for—

Yeah, who you with?

Computer Currents.

Who’s your editor over there?

Who am I dealing with, sir? said Tyler in his silkiest voice.

This is Hal Nemeth in the technical department, the voice said.

Well, Mr. Nemeth, I’ll be frank with you. I’m writing this article on spec. I have some friends in Silicon Valley who tell me that what you guys are about to release is pretty special…

Where are you calling from?

Menlo Park, said Tyler, which was true; he’d driven down for the occasion, and was calling from a pay phone there, between a big billboard for Caesar’s Palace and another for an upcoming club entitled Feminine Circus.

Look, Hal Nemeth said. You’re probably OK, but for certain reasons I can’t really get into, we prefer not to publicize anything yet. If you want me to transfer you back to Judy, she can put your mailing address into the database so that you get a copy of the press release.

Sure, I understand, said Tyler ingratiatingly. Thanks for your time.

Do you want me to transfer you?

Sure. Judy has a nice voice.

Hal Nemeth grunted sourly, and there was a click, and the next thing he knew the receptionist was saying: RoboGraphix. May I help you?

Is this Judy? he said.

Yes, this is Judy. How may I help you, sir?

Judy, this is Chuck Wildmore. I don’t know if you remember me, but my sister Karen has been trying to reach you.

Karen? I don’t know any Karen.

Your name is Judy, right?

Yes. But—

And you work for RoboGraphix?

Obviously this is RoboGraphix. Who—

Well, you must be the one, he insisted, enjoying what in the industry they called a “gag call.”—She’s in the hospital right now, which is why she asked me to call you. It’s kind of important to her.

But I’ve told you I don’t know anybody named Karen, said the woman in stony exasperation.

Well, I apologize for bothering you, but Karen said it was important. She’s in intensive care, you understand. You know, where they put those tubes into your arms. They say if you go in there you have a forty percent chance of coming out.

I’m sorry, the woman said reflexively.

She says you were a friend of hers a long time ago, and she wanted to see you.

Some friend. I—

Look. Would you mind giving her a jingle at the hospital? Or — no, that’s going to be a hassle for you. How about if I—

But I don’t know any Karen! the receptionist said plaintively. Can I put you on hold? I’ve got another call.

Sure, said Tyler. I’ll wait.

He listened to the tinny music, and then Judy picked up the phone and said: RoboGraphix. May I help you?

Hi, Judy. This is Karen’s brother.

Listen, Judy said, weren’t you the guy I transferred to Mr. Nemeth?

Mr. Nemeth? Who’s that? Listen, Judy, if you don’t want to talk to my sister why don’t you just say so? I’m trying to help her out. I don’t know what this is about, because we went our separate ways for years, if you see what I’m saying, but now she’s… Anyway, I guess I was wrong to bother you. Thanks for your time. I’ll tell Karen you were unavailable.

The girl hesitated. — What hospital is she in?

San Francisco General. No health insurance. It’s pretty chaotic up there, so if you call you might not get through.

I’m sorry, Judy said again. (Closing his eyes, he remembered Irene boredly picking at her fingernails.) Look, I have to go. There are three calls waiting. If your sister wants to call, I’m in the book.

All right, Judy. I’ll pass that along. Has your last name changed since she knew you?

No, I’m not married, she said, her voice dark, foggy and lost like beer bottles on the bottom shelf of a refrigerator case. My last name is Knowles, and I’m in the book.

For Palo Alto?

Sunnyvale.

Thanks a million, Judy. I guess it will mean a lot to her to speak with you, said Tyler, hanging up.

He called Dan Smooth about that drink on Friday at eight o’clock. He had to go to L.A., he said. Could they reschedule? Dan Smooth, momentarily as silent as the grating-sealed shops late at night in Chinatown, said at length that they could. He called his mother, who was having chest pains. He called his answering machine, but there was no new business.

He drove down to Los Angeles for another of what he called his secret visits, and after he had done his business there he telephoned his old friend Jake, a downsized engineer. He asked if there were any special place in an office where a small company would be inclined to store secret chips.

Well, said Jake, you start with any kind of chip you’re going to make in an exotic environment, it needn’t be a big place. If you’re going to hide things, it’s going to be by classifying the whole place.

They’ve done that. And then how would they store the actual chip? Would they have to keep it in a refrigerator or something like that?

Don’t expose it to any strong electromagnetic fields, or it’ll get fried, said Jake. That’s the thing. Well, actually I don’t know about field, but pulse is certainly a problem. You just want to put it in a conductive piece of rubber or foam to keep it from being shorted out…

And then I suppose you’d keep it in a safe…

The principal investigator’s desk drawer might be good. The safe is more sexy, of course…

Okay, so the principal investigator has got to investigate it. He’s got to make sure that it’s good, I guess.

Right. He verifies that it’s good by using a device called a comparator, which basically projects magnified images of a chip onto a ground glass circle. Well, that’s old technology now. A chip can be as complicated as the Thomas Guide.

I get it, said Tyler, narrowing his eyes. Anyhow, the principal investigator will be sitting at his desk, doing something with the chip. Maybe he’ll project a digitized image of it onto his computer screen. Maybe he’ll have a comparator. It really doesn’t matter, just as long as I have some idea where the chip is. Thanks, Jake.

He let the rest of the week go by and then called Judy at home on Saturday morning. — Judy, this is Chuck Wildmore again, he said, picking his nose. I’m sorry that Karen never called you. She died on the operating table. She didn’t regain consciousness.

Look, said Judy unpleasantly, I’ve been trying to think who this Karen might be, but I’m drawing a blank. I’ve never, ever known anybody named Karen except for one girl in third grade who hated me. I think you’re confused. I’m sorry for your loss, but I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me anymore.

Karen left you something in her will, he replied with equal coldness. I’ll let our attorney know that you refuse delivery. Goodbye.

Now at last he had her, for an avaricious curiosity came into the girl’s dull and hostile voice, and she said quickly: What did she leave me?

I guess that’s not your concern, said Tyler snappishly, since you refuse any connection with the family. I’m sorry I ever called you. Don’t worry, Judy. You won’t hear from me again.

Then tell your lawyer to get in touch with me.

Every time a lawyer talks to you about baseball you have to pay for his time, said Tyler, his voice now modulated to the melodies of patience. Judy’s estate is dirt poor, and I don’t have much myself, so with all due respect I’m not paying for an extra hour of legal consultation just to have his secretary mail you something you probably won’t appreciate.

What do you mean I won’t appreciate it? You don’t even know me. Where do you get off trying to define me?

I wasn’t trying to define you, Judy.

Well, what did Karen leave me?

It’s a little velvet box, with — do you want me to open it? I haven’t looked inside. I didn’t figure I had that right.

Yeah, the girl said carelessly, why don’t you open it?

There’s a ribbon around it, said Tyler, impressing even himself with this improvisation. Do you want me to undo the bow?

No, that’s okay, she said finally. Why don’t you send it to me?

I’ll send it to your office then, he said. It may be a couple of weeks before I get to the post office. I’m kind of in a state of shock right now, to tell you the truth.

Mr. Wildmore, I—

I don’t know whether to send it registered or not. It may be valuable. What do you think?

Cupidity won out, or maybe just good manners. — Look, Mr. Wildmore, the girl said, where are you?

Menlo Park at the moment. But I need to be in San Francisco at three-thirty to claim the body.

And you have the box?

Yeah. I have the box.

I thought you said the lawyer had it.

Judy, I’m getting kind of tired of being interrogated.

I’m sorry. You want to do lunch?

Tyler pretended to hesitate, then said in his best grudging voice: I guess I have time to meet you for lunch if you want.

And you’ll bring the box?

Sure.

The girl sighed. — You’re sure you’re not a nutcase?

I’m not a nutcase, said Tyler. I’m not even a nut. Where do you want to meet me?

Are you near a Sizzler’s? I always like eating at Sizzler’s.

Sure, said Tyler. I like their surf ’n’ turf. Karen was also very fond of Sizzler’s.

She was? Gosh, I wish I remembered her.

She was an awfully special person, he said, pretending that he was talking about Irene so that his voice would get properly sad. He closed his eyes and saw the mole on Irene’s forehead. His grief rushed in and carried him safely along.

He recollected something that another prophet had once told him: Your generic secretary is not a secretary by choice. Who picks a crappy job like that, all responsibility and no power? They start off like that because their Nazi husbands don’t allow them to have any job that’s higher status than that, and after the divorce they’re stuck. Secretaries hate their jobs, Henry. That’s why all the hackers get what they want by just calling them up.

I’ve seen plenty of secretaries with power, Tyler had countered. Plenty of old dragons. Plenty of smart ladies who know where all the bodies are buried.

Yeah, I’m talking about the young ones, his friend had said. Those poor, trapped young broads. It’s just like being a whore except the pay’s not as good.

Are you there? Judy was saying.

Yeah.

Look, I’m sorry if I was maybe a little bit suspicious. It’s just that, like, some things have happened to me before, you know, guys taking advantage of me and stuff.

I understand, he said. Then, thinking of Irene, he muttered: Jesus, I wish I could put my arms around her right now.

Are you sure you’re going to be okay? the girl said, obviously not wanting to sustain some stranger’s neediness.

Hm? Sure, I’ll be fine. See you at Sizzler’s, then. How about in two hours?

Okay, she said softly. ’Bye.

’Bye, he said.

Tyler went out and cadged a velvet box from a jewelry store. He took from his keyring an old key from an office in Emeryville where he hadn’t worked for twelve years; he’d always known that that key would come in handy someday. He put the key inside the box and tied a ribbon around it. Considering carefully, he went back to the jewelry store and bought a gilded silver pendant so that the girl wouldn’t be completely disappointed, and enclosed that with the key.

Judy was plump, unattractive, and shy, although her shyness she disguised as grumpiness. He bought them both lunch and sat there with her at a table beside the window. When she asked him what he did, Tyler tried to talk as much like an office rodent as he could: Oh, I work for CiceroNet. I’m new there. Basically, they do some kind of Web stuff. Originally I was a consultant. You know, it’s a time or money trade, and I’m here to help. That’s what I told them, and then I spent some time talking to see if I could wangle an extra few hundred bucks. I was pretty sure that they were going to bite, and it’s tempting to inflate things a bit, but I was honest; I kept their costs down…

He chatted merrily away in this jargon, his words as hurried as red ants rushing over terraces of bark, until he was satisfied that she’d stopped listening.

So tell me about you, he said. Do you like the people you work with?

Well, Mr. Nemeth’s kind of impatient sometimes but everybody says he’s the real genius, the girl said. I don’t know if he’s a genius or not. All I know is that he makes me work late sometimes, mailing out all those little diskettes and stuff, and I have to put them in special envelopes…

That’s not very nice of him, said Tyler. Can’t you bring a book or something for when he’s not looking?

Then I’d never get home. He makes me stop by the Federal Express place at night on my own time.

Tyler had been considering giving Judy a special desk calendar or something of the sort which when properly hung would orient a flat camera at Hal Nemeth’s desk, but now he saw that such grand plans wouldn’t even be necessary. All he’d have to do was take Judy out to dinner a few times, and sooner or later he could get her to bring the mail with her…

And then he was ashamed of himself. What had the poor girl ever done to him?

He handed over the box, stood up, and said abruptly: Well, Judy, this is from Karen, and I thank you for meeting me.

The girl’s mouth dropped open. — You don’t have to go, she said. I mean, if you don’t want to. I can see I made a mistake about you. I think you’re really nice.

Thank you, sweetheart, he said. You’re nice, too. I guess I’ll be getting back.

Don’t you even want to see what Karen gave me?

Maybe it’s something betwen you and her, he said. Well, see you around.

He strode quickly out, got into his car, and drove back to San Francisco, passing the airport with its gloomily lit runways and warehouses, its planes like robot iguanas waiting for the heat of some unholy day to burst through their dark torpor. Nothing but concrete, lights and fog ahead… The nearest parking garage was a sickening prismatic crystal of light. No security-minded Queen would ever set up shop there. It began to drizzle, and the pavement shone as black and strange as squid-ink. He remembered Irene with her baseball cap fashionably backward, thoughtfully bringing chopsticksful of black noodles into her mouth in a Korean-Japanese restaurant in Japantown; the highway was the color of those noodles.

He told H.R. Computer that for legal reasons he couldn’t take the RoboGraphix case. — So you want to kiss away twenty thousand, his client said. — Yeah, drawled Tyler, it’ll be a pretty amorous send-off… — He told his landlord that he was really sorry, but this month the rent would be three or four days late. Whenever he thought about Judy he felt guilty, so every day for the next two weeks he anonymously sent her roses.

Every weekend he drove down to Los Angeles.

After so profitably wrapping up that scam he got a call from John, who said: I was going through Irene’s stuff and found a letter that she wrote you last year.

Flinching from the vibrating anger in John’s voice, Tyler said casually: Is it important? Do you want to send it to me or do you want to read it over the mail?

Why don’t you stop by and pick it up, said John flatly.

All right. I’ll come by after eight.

John hung up.

When Tyler got to John and Irene’s apartment he found the living room crammed with boxes which gaped like graves. Wordlessly John handed him the triple-folded sheet of paper in lavender flare pen which ran:

Dearest Henry,

Yes, Tyler had given up. According to John’s cruel characterization, he had long since begun to vegetate, his mind humming and drowsing though the blocky, sun-shadowed pastel landscapes of the Sunset District. (The Richmond District looked much the same.) As for John himself, he had likewise just now laid aside a quarrel with the world, of which such knowledge as he had — less than his brother’s, naturally — inclined him less to master it by analysis than to assert practical control of a small piece of it; and for the rest to find comfort where he could. Irene’s suicide had been both a desolation and a humiliation; but since, as we have stated without sarcasm, he was a member in good standing of the Order of Backbone, he sought not to get ahead of his other grievances. She left him no note, but for almost two months after her installation in the ground, Irene’s credit card bills kept arriving, like the uncanny communications of a Ouija board. Carefully reading them over before he paid, John never found lingerie purchases, or dinners for two that he didn’t know of, or any evidence of other untoward attachments. Nonetheless, his resolution regarding Hank was: friendly but cool, forever. Hank had had something to do with Irene’s death, at least indirectly. Thus John’s instant bench warrant, followed by summary judgment. Were Hank to forthrightly admit his complicity, begging pardon, John could perhaps forgive him, depending on the circumstances (although here John might have been deceiving himself; for when others dare to confess a fault whose existence we may have strongly suspected, but not yet proved to ourselves, we are more likely to gratify our anger than our magnaminity). Meanwhile it was important not to upset their mother unnecessarily. John had already decided that after she lay beyond harm he would, if his brother’s demeanor continued to be evasive, make the break. It wasn’t as if refraining from executing this sentence would assuage his loneliness, Hank never having been good for much; nor (by the same logic) would proceeding so render John any more alone.

Celia, on the other hand, had been sympathetic. During the first month she’d telephoned every day, more often even than his mother; she’d kept herself ready every night to come if he needed her, her overnight bag packed. He knew that each evening when she came home from work the first thing she did, after setting down her slender-strapped scarlet purse on the round table in the hall, and double-locking the door from the inside, was to sit down on her bed and study the answering machine light to see if he had called. (She was under instructions not to bother him at work except on special occasions.) How could he have called? Her telephone extension at work dangled readily from the synapses of his brain. He knew that she went home at five-fifteen, and so never telephoned her between five and six. But still, every day Celia paid him that absurd homage. Well, what if someone else had called? That must be the real reason that she checked her messages. Why wouldn’t she say so? Did she truly imagine him to be so thin-skinned or jealous that he had to believe she waited only for him? The improbable supposition that her motives might be exactly as she’d stated them very occasionally flashed like green numbers across his mental screen, but that made him shudder. He wouldn’t believe that; he couldn’t. How could a grownup professional woman be so desperate? And, if she were, how could he interpret such desperation except as an ominous warning of utter dependency, like a limp drowner dragging the rescuer down with her weight? Better, far better, to believe her capable of telling white lies! All in all, the matter perplexed John, and so he tried not to think about it, especially because it insinuated the parallel image of his brother entering that clammy apartment on Pacheco Street, then loudly and vulgarly pissing, the bathroom door wide open, while the answering machine, turned to maximum volume, blared out whatever propositions it contained. In Hank’s case, of course, the practice reflected merely professional desperation: Would there be a job, so that he could pay the rent? John had loaned his brother money more times than he could remember (which is to say, fewer than he believed; the grandeur of charity easily magnifies itself, if memory is not consulted). At least Celia had never asked John for anything except for his company. She saw him, he supposed, almost as his mother did: a handsome, vivacious boy of excellent prospects, a sweet boy, a practical boy, above all an honest and honorable boy, a success. Whatever John promised to do, he did. The rarity of his promises made them all the more valuable. Celia was clever enough never to extort his word from him, never even to gaze up at him with sadly begging dog-eyes if she could avoid it, for she feared John precisely as much as she loved him, and he was very easily annoyed. Needless to say, she resented feeling afraid, and hid that resentment so that she became his tenderest and most secret enemy. (Would life please bring me a man to love me? she prayed. Please? Please. So far, life only brings me you…) During John’s marriage she’d taken up evening paralegal classes to prevent herself from disturbing him too often. The fact that she was paying steeply in both time and money for these studies made her take them all the more seriously. She always got her A+, and the teacher praised her.

Celia was also known as a conscientious list-keeper. Whenever he visited her, John would find beside her phone a pad of paper inscribed with such items as:

fax badge names to Ellen

The next morning, John’s friend, his desk phone’s amber button, winked at him most mirthfully. — What is it now, Joy? he said.

Mr. Singer would like to see you as soon as possible, said Joy’s voice.

OK. Tell him I’ll be there in five minutes.

What about your two o’clock with Mr. Brady?

How long does Singer need me for?

He didn’t say. Probably some quickie kind of thing.

Fine, Joy. Where am I meeting Brady?

At Spoletto’s, reservation in your name.

And that’s at two o’clock?

Let me see. Oh, John, can you hold one second? There’s a call on the other —

OK. Thank you, Joy, he said, hanging up. He made a note on his memo pad: Call

Mom tonight. —

He added: Flowers for Celia. —

… and crossed it out.

Celia had returned home. (Post Street was closed off, the San Francisco coroner’s white van parked among the police cars.) She dreamed that John was searching to buy Chinese figurines for a girl he knew. She woke up knowing that this meant Irene. She went to Grace Cathedral during her lunch hour and lit a candle for Irene, praying that the dead woman and John would be together in Heaven. She wept when she did it. That night when she lay down in her bed, she dreamed of the smell of fresh-baked bread.

The Vietnamese woman led Tyler into a room with a mattress, a chair, and a bathtub. She said: Thirty-five dollars is only for shower and back rub, okay? You want tea or coffee?

Tea.

Okay. Get undressed. I come back.

Tyler took off his shoes and lay down on the mattress. When she came in with the tea, she stopped dead, covered her gaping mouth with one hand, and cried: Why you not undress? What you want?

I just want to talk.

Your friend wait for you in lobby! she cried scornfully. Why you no talk with him?

I want to talk with you.

She squatted down beside the mattress, staring at him. Then she laughed bitterly and went out. He heard her yelling in Vietnamese with the other ladies.

After a while another woman came in. — What you want? she said.

To talk to you.

Why?

I’m lonely. I want to be next to a woman, just talking.

Thirty-five dollah not enough for talk, she sneered.

Okay. How much more do you need?

Twenty dollah.

And then you’ll sit next to me?

Okay.

He gave her twenty dollars more and she sat down on the edge of the bed with her legs open so he slid his hand in and felt the paper menstrual shield through her panties. He caressed the insides of her thighs for the half-hour she gave him, while she tapped her foot boredly. This reach of his had been the right card to play. As soon as he’d touched her, the suspicion on her face drained away, leaving a hard residue of contempt and weariness. He was safe now.

What do you want to know? she said.

I don’t want to know anything. Just talk to me.

What’s your job?

I travel.

You rich?

Sometimes. No.

At that, she lost interest. Better and better.

Have you seen much war? he said.

Much much.

What do you think about it?

She shrugged. — I think war is very good. Because many fight, many suffer, but then one side get what they want.

Do you have brothers and sisters?

I don’t want to think about them. I don’t even want to think about myself.

Are you married? he said.

Two times. Not now.

You lonely?

Sometimes. Everybody wants love. — She regarded him piercingly. We were all born naked. Why not get naked when we want?

He understood her pefectly, but figured that would have cost him another twenty or thirty at least. Brady had given him one last wad for expenses. In his business, of course, one could not always present receipts. Some of the quittances which Brady had seen him counting he’d filled out and signed himself. That was normal. And if he kept this money now instead of giving it to people such as the Vietnamese woman, Brady would never know. Or, more likely, Brady would understand, even approve; probably Brady had factored in a little graft as part of Tyler’s wages, or let’s say a bonus to which he had every right as long as he did the job. He felt sorry for this girl. Just as a freshly shaved pudendum, to which the stubble has just begun to return, resembles in texture a squid’s most delicately suction-studded tentacles, so his own thoughts, yearnings and veriest gratitudes, shaved by expediencey though they were, had begun to grow out upon his soul in a boneless sea-creaturely fashion bereft of the laws which two-legged dignity must worship. Sure, he was sorry. But he felt sorry for everybody. He never let that get in the way of his work. (A Sicilian lawyer he’d met had three briefcases, one for twelve-hour jobs, one for twenty-four-hour jobs, and one for thirty-six-hour jobs. This man’s best pleasure was reading Il Sicilio, then wiping his glasses and crying: The Italian government is very unfair! — After that he smiled, ate a doughnut, and forgot about the unfairness. Tyler was like that with his sadness.)

I already got naked with the Queen, he said, watching her.

I don’t know any queen. Are you a cop?

I did her in the parking garage around the corner. She took it up the ass.

Why what for you think I care about parking garage? she shouted. You think I have money to drive? You think I park my big big car in parking garage of the Queen? You stupid little cop! I’m gonna tell madame on you.

What’s the Queen’s first name? I want to buy her a birthday present.

That Africa who cares for her first name all just bad African people those goddamned Negroes always try to hurt me in the street…

Tyler gave up. He rose and said goodbye, tipping her five, then strolled around the corner to a phony Chinese restuarant he knew which had just translated itself into a barbeque place. He wasn’t hungry, and the sauce didn’t smell very good. The place was empty. The manager of the former Chinese place recognized Tyler right away and came running up to him and said to the new manager: Hey, you gotta meet Henry Tyler! He’s a character!

I don’t have time to meet characters, said the new manager.

The old manager hung his head.

What’ll you have, friend? said the new manager.

Barbeque, said Tyler wearily.

The cook, who appeared to be the new manager’s wife, brought him a paper plate dripping with grease and bulging with half-frozen, half-burned chicken covered with ketchup, while the old manager stood by tapping his foot.

How’s business? he said to the old manager.

Booming, replied the new manager.

Tyler took a bite of barbeque and his teeth struck ice.

How is it? said the cook anxiously.

Very good, said Tyler.

She smiled with relief.

All three of them were watching him eat. With considerable effort he finished the first piece of chicken. There were five pieces left.

How come you don’t use your hands? said the old manager. If you use your fork like that you’re only gonna get it all over your shirt.

Tyler ate the second piece and said: Does the Queen of the Whores ever come in here?

I seen her sometimes, said the old manager indifferently. She’s just a stuck-up bitch.

What does she look like?

Oh, about five foot two, you know, melons kinda like this, wears high heels and a tight mini, you know the drill… Somebody said she calls herself Africa. How’s the chicken?

Great, said Tyler, picking up the third piece.

How come you don’t use your other hand?

Oh, I wanted to keep it clean to touch the Queen with in case she comes in here.

She won’t be coming in here any time soon, said the old manager. I hear they sent her down to San Bruno. What do you think of the chicken? It’s my own special sauce.

Don’t talk about the sauce, said the new manager. We gotta keep it a secret.

The Vietnamese girl he’d just tipped came in and pretended not to recognize him. He beckoned her over. — Have some chicken, he said. I have plenty.

You already lonely again? she cried in disgusted surprise.

Always, he said. But I’m celebrating. I told you I did the Queen.

He went home, turned on his computer and ordered an economy scan for American women whose first names were Africa. There came the connection beep he knew so well, and then the wriggling cursor indicated that the machine was SEARCHING. Your search number is 0773427. Then the screen scrolled down to the disclaimer: Nothing was guaranteed. Even though Tyler had to pay, the disclaimer warned, he shouldn’t expect to get anything for his money. Nonetheless, the computer found thirty-eight matches, six of them with California addresses. So, flashing down blue-underlined screen menus, he ran six extended traces at twenty-five dollars each. Soon he had their dates of birth and social security numbers. The Department of Motor Vehicles database presented him with the physical descriptions on their drivers’ licenses. They were all black. One, a Mrs. Africa Lively, had a Beverly Hills address and phone number. Tyler telephoned her and reached an answering service man who said that she was in Europe until July. He ran a credit check on her just in case. She owned three mansions and a cosmetology empire. So much for her (probably). The second Africa, formerly of Colusa, was freshly dead. The other four Africas were all alive and in San Francisco. One had a parking infraction on her record. Otherwise they were clean. Tyler printed out their DMV descriptions so that he could stalk them at his convenience, then telephoned his mother, who said she hoped that he and John could spend a weekend in Sacramento with her soon.

You datin’? You datin’? cried the whore Kitty.

Just looking, said Tyler. How about you?

Are you a cop? You don’t have to intimidate me. I’m not a prostitute. I’m just out here tryin’ to make a little money. Hey! I seen you before! You was with that bigshot Mr. Lunch, and you — yeah, you’re Mr. Breakfast, and I gave you head. I give pretty good head, huh?

You sure do, said Tyler. How’s Sapphire doing today?

That retard bitch? She just pissed her pants again, and Maj said…

Glaring in alarm, a black prostitute in a white miniskirt elbowed her in the ribs.

Why, good evening, Tyler said to her. What’s your name, darling?

Chocolate, said the black woman, obviously pleased to divert the subject.

Well, that’s a pretty edible name. Are you feeling edible tonight?

How much you got to spend?

I like that plastic bracelet on your wrist. Did Africa give it to you?

Africa? What the fuck are you talking about? Are you some kinda fucking racist? That’s my hospital bracelet. I just got out of General today. Somebody stabbed me; I was in the trauma ward; you shoulda seen me…

Hey, Chocolate, if I give you twenty dollars can I have your bracelet?

What for?

Tyler lowered his voice and winked. — I want to take it home and lick the sweat off.

You catch that, Kitty? Chocolate laughed. Is this pervert for real?

Kitty slid her sunglasses down her nose. — What about me, Mr. Breakfast? Don’t I get a finder’s fee?

All right, ladies, he said. Here’s five for you and twenty for you. Let me just cut through this bracelet with my pocketknife…

He got into his car and drove happily home. The medical record number on the bracelet was 3144173. He wrote up a request for medical records, attached to a blurry old copy of a power of attorney he’d once done. He photocopied it four times and sent one to Admission and Discharge Records Department, one to Emergency Room Records Department, one to Medical Expense Records Department, and one to Billing Statements Department. Billing Statements wrote back right away and said that that information was confidential. Emergency Room and Medical Expense Records he never heard from. Admission and Discharge sent him a copy of the first page of Chocolate’s chart. Her real name was Brenda Wiley. He drove down to the hospital the next afternoon and by flashing his toy police badge convinced a young clerk to let him see the rest.

BRENDA WILEY

MR#: 3144173

PT TYPE: J

PATIENT EMPLOYMENT STATUS: 3

OCCUPATION: UNEMPLOYMENT

SSN: 544-38-5008

DOB: 11/12/1959

AGE: 37

SEX: FEMALE

There followed the bleak and tediously told tales of her misadventures and bodily misfunctions, bound into three fat volumes whose scope went back twenty-two years. The theme of any history of a body must be decay, but this body had begun to decline on or before the age of fifteen, when Brenda first married cocaine. By sixteen she was an experienced whore with her first crack baby inside her. There would be seven more. Over and over the medical chart said:

VAGINAL DELIVERY W/O COMPLICATING DIAGNOSES

PRINCIPAL: 644.21 EARLY ONSET DELIVERY 73.59 MANUAL ASSIST DELIVERY NEC

SECONDARY

70 MENTAL DISORDER — DELIVER

71 COCAINE ABUSE — UNSPEC

V27.0 DELIVER — SINGLE LIVEBORN

and once she gave birth to crack-addicted twins.

At first the chart approved the transparency of her urine, but as the years of bad living stained her, entries such as the following became the rule:

BLOOD COUNT AND DIFFERENTIAL

He instructed his computer to search for American women named Africa Johnston. None of them lived in California. But then how many Chocolates were there?

In his microfiche of the Los Angeles Superior Court index, which an old private eye had sold him for almost nothing, there were all the aliases one could want. No Africa Johnston, however.

Meanwhile Chocolate trotted around the corner to her homegirl, fat Mexican Beatrice, who, sunny believer, could often be made to do as she was told; and after Chocolate had described to her the grizzled white man who was searching for the Queen, Beatrice promised to relay this warning, crying: I come running, running!

Switching on his computer, Tyler searched two legal and two illegal databases for the alias “Domino” and found nothing. The fifth database, which limited itself to California and which invited him to access it for each of the state’s fifty-eight counties at eleven dollars each, gave him a match with the name Sylvia Fine in San Francisco County. Datatronic Solutions would have been better, but he owed them too much money. He entered the name in a sixth database and got her social security number. Running her name and social in a seventh, he obtained and printed out a lengthy file beginning

Tyler drove down to San Francisco’s municipal court, found a parking space five blocks away after considerable difficulty, and went inside whistling gloomily, the printout in his fist. He requested all case reports within the county’s jurisdiction, copying out the case numbers from the printout. — Oh, jeez, he said, cross because the courthouse clerk spotted Domino’s rap sheet and tore it off the file. — The next clerk greeted him by name. Tyler smiled, waved, asked about her family. When the documents came, he sat and leafed through their unhappy pages, learning that Domino had been arrested and convicted for prostitution eight times, which hardly surprised him, and that she had also served time for two counts of cocaine possession, one count of heroin possession, and three counts of felony assault. The clerk, liking Tyler and wanting to help him, had “forgotten” to remove Domino’s rap sheet, private possession of which was a crime, but since the rap sheet had fallen into Tyler’s possession inadvertently, so as to speak, possession was no skin off his nose. In Sacramento, San Diego, and San Joaquin, it said, the blonde had been convicted of many other sad and ugly acts, including one attempted homicide which she’d plea-bargained down, and she’d been charged with infanticide but acquitted on a technicality. — Poor Domino, he muttered to himself.

Yawning, he browsed through the trial transcripts:

Ms. Fine, how do you plead? ¶ No contest, Your Honor.

Ms. Fine, how do you plead? ¶ Guilty, Your Honor.

Really what he wanted were the names of co-defendants, co-conspirators. Although he wrote them all dutifully down and later ran them through his databases, he already knew that none would check out. Not one name was linked to the aliases “Queen” or “Maj” or “Africa.”

Every summer the great maple tree on his mother’s front lawn seemed to grow larger, wider, and greener (and of course it actually did), so that at sunset when he sat out on the porch drinking lemonade with his mother, that tree was as an immense crystal both gold and green which subsumed the entire sky, and his mother asked him if he would like another glass of lemonade, and he said: I’ll get it, Mom. — The pitcher was almost empty, so he mixed up more, employing fresh lemons and strawberry slices; she always made it too sweet, so he made it the way he liked it and brought out the sugar jar for her. This jar resembled in miniature the prism of one of those lighthouses along the Oregon coast. A metal lip on the top could be finger-hooked into a beak from which the sugar came vomiting out whenever the humidity was not overly high; he saw that his mother had scattered a few grains of rice inside, but these hadn’t prevented the sugar from hardening into a cylindrical brick, chipped into white rubble at the top only, thanks to his mother’s spoon-probings.

So you won’t be in this weekend? his mother repeated.

That’s right, said Tyler, gently swishing the ice cubes in his glass.

Where did you say you’re going?

I didn’t, but I’m going to L.A.

Business? pursued his mother.

Something like that.

You know, his mother said with gentle determination, John tells me that you very often make the drive all the way down to Los Angeles to lay flowers on Irene’s grave.

Tyler didn’t say anything.

You loved Irene very much, Henry, didn’t you? I know you did.

Tyler cleared his throat. — Yes, he said hoarsely. Yes, I did.

And you’re going to visit her again this weekend, his mother continued.

Maybe we can talk about something else, Mom. We’ve had this chat before…

Henry, I think it’s important that we discuss this subject a little further. I know it’s painful to you, but I’m concerned. I don’t think it’s good for you to dwell on Irene so much.

I’m sorry you think so, Mom, said Tyler, squeezing his glass. Far away, he heard a freight train.

There’s a certain question I asked you once before, and you refused to answer. Don’t worry, she said in a hard voice. I’ll never ask you again.

Fine.

May I be frank on a related subject? said his mother. I’m not sure that those trips of yours to L.A. are very beneficial to your relationship with John. It makes him feel odd.

So John’s been complaining about me again, said Tyler, squeezing the glass.

No, not complaining exactly, his mother lied, and Tyler, knowing that she lied, seeing and reading the lie and comprehending exactly what it implied, squeezed the glass and then put it down because he knew that if he squeezed any harder it would shatter in his hand; he was grateful that he’d realized that. John had once broken a glass that way, he remembered. (He thought of Brady jeering over and over: Are you emotionally compromised?)

Where’s Mugsy? he said.

I imagine she’s sleeping under the blackberry bush. That’s her little hangout.

Do you want me to take her for a walk?

That’s just what Irene used to say. Do you remember? Irene was so good to Mugsy.

Mom, I think I’ll go lie down, he said. Can I make you some more lemonade before I turn in? Oh, I see the pitcher’s still almost full. Should I bring the sugar inside?

Ascending the stairs to his old room with the battleship-green microscope, a birthday present, still on the bureau in which if he opened it he’d doubtless find many of his T-shirts from tenth grade, history kept at bay by mothballs, he undressed, admitting that his mother was right. He would stop visiting Irene. At least he would make this weekend the last time. Early the next morning he took his mother out for breakfast and then drove her home, promised to call her soon, promised to call John, promised to look for a girlfriend, waved goodbye, took I-80 West to the interchange and cloverleaved widely round to meet I-5 South. The day was already miserably hot. No traffic detained him in the Central Valley, and by the time he’d passed three hours he was already far past Coalinga; he wondered whether he ought to visit the Tule Elk Reserve sometime; that was a place he had always imagined going with Irene. At Pumpkin Center there was an accident, and then an overheated car blocked one lane near Grapevine, but he made good time still, and at the seven-hour mark was nearly in sight of the Korean florist’s shop near the Tropicana.

How’s business? he said.

Very slow, said the florist. Ever since after big riot here is no good. Black people no good. Make everybody afraid.

I’d like a dozen red roses, please.

Yes, sir. You is always same same. Your wife is so lucky. She is Caucasian like you?

She did look pretty pale in that open coffin, he said. Thank you.

The stones at the cemetery went on and on, but he knew how to find her very easily now; he sat down on the grass early on a hot dry endless Long Angeles evening of idiotic cloudlessness and meaningless freedom; up the green from him, some Koreans were singing hymns. Her stone was clean and polished. There were flabby, stinking, horribly rotten flowers in the metal holder — maybe his. He replaced them with the red roses. He looked around to make sure that no one saw or cared. Then, stretching himself out full length on the grass, he laid his head upon the stone. He stayed like that for a long time. Finally he turned his head slowly to touch with his lips that deep, cool, V-stroked letter “I.”

You know what I like the best? said old Dan Smooth. It’s those rape cases, when you get to collect pieces of the pillow slip for yourself, and pieces of the bedsheet. If I find a likely stain, I just cut around it with my pocket knife. I have quite a collection at home. You should see ’em under the fluorescent light.

Tyler sighed. — Have another Bushmill’s, Dan.

Why, Henry, you’re the next best thing to… even if your manner may not be so attractive… Say, can I ask you something?

What?

Well, I’m probably being an asshole, but I always wanted to know. I like thinking up questions like this. It’s kind of my reason for being. What I wanted to know is, did you ever screw that sister-in-law-of yours?

Tyler was silent.

You know, the one that killed herself, said Dan Smooth eagerly, watching Tyler with a malicious smile.

I thought all I’d have to do to get some information out of you was buy you a few drinks, said Tyler. I didn’t know I was going to have to put up with your bullshit, too. You know what, Dan? It’s not worth it to me to get that information. And you know what else? I’m going to walk out of here right now and leave you with the tab for these drinks, and what are you going to do about it?

Aw, Henry, I told you I’m an asshole sometimes. I can’t help it. Listen, did I tell you I’m trying to get a whole new specialty created for me?

What’s that, Dan? said Tyler impassively.

Pediatric forensics, the other said proudly. It’s the up and coming thing. Little dead boys and girls. Marks, bruises, evidence. Sodomy holes are like snowflakes, no two alike. Get the picture?

You ought to be castrated, Dan.

Hee, hee, hee! Coming from you that’s quite a compliment, you old sis—

Don’t say it. I’m carrying, and you’re starting to really piss me off.

Oh, he’s carrying, he says! Pissed off, he says! Cocked and locked! And no luck with the Queen, either! Don’t think I don’t know all your woes, Henry Tyler! I’m the master of stains.

I do enjoy your company, Dan, but will you tell me where the Queen is or not? I know you know everything.

Even the answer to the question I asked you? Hee, hee, hee!

You’re not just sick, you’re boring.

And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go. That’s Luke 22 something, or maybe 23. I could tell you a lot of things about Luke.

Get another hobby, like skinning rats. Here’s twenty for the drinks. I’ll come visit you in jail sometime.

Visit the sewers, whispered Smooth theatrically. That’s where her piss goes.

Lots of sewers in San Francisco, said Tyler, unimpressed. Lots of piss, too. Can you narrow it down for me a little bit?

Sure I can, Henry. You got a pen? I’ll draw you a map; I’ll write out a regular urinalysis. Hey, but didn’t that Brady take you off the case?

As a matter of fact, Dan, he did.

So what are you getting out of this?

Oh, let’s just say it keeps my mind off things, and you know which things, and the fact that you know ought to make you pretty gleeful, you sleazy old sonofabitch. Now, let me ask you something. Is there a Queen of the Whores and do you know where she is?

Yes to both, Tyler. Just call me the yes man. You see, she’s got her fingers in a lot of sex crimes. Got her fingers in all the holes. Here’s a photo of her. Full length, you see. An old photo. It was Halloween, so for a joke she dressed like a slut. With her that’s not usual. Likes to wear that baseball cap, but sometimes she wears a wool hat. And I’ll tell you something else. She uses so much perfume she stinks like a cathouse. Well, what could be more appropriate, eh? So buy me one more Bushmill’s before you go, and take this home with you and think about how you’re going to make it worth my while, and then give me a call up at the Sacramento number Saturday morning after ten —

No, not then, said Tyler. I’ve got to go to L.A. then for some business.

He sat with his feet on the bed looking at Dan Smooth’s photo and working up his details description sheet.

SEX Female

He was late with his rent. Jumpy, maybe from coffee — a not unpleasant jumpiness, his fingers not quite twitching, like baby birds almost ready to fly across Valencia Street — he drove over to his landlord’s place in Menlo Park to deliver the check in person. When he rang the buzzer, nobody answered, which relieved him. He slipped the check under the door. For a moment he wanted to call Judy from RoboGraphix, but that passed, leaving him guilty and stained. He drove back home to the Outer Sunset where it was foggy again, and someone’s purple light was flashing in the apartment next door. There were no messages on his machine. But then the phone rang. First he thought that it might be business; then he decided that it was his landlord. When he put the receiver to his ear, a cheery male voice said: Hello! I’m a telecommunications computer specially selected to… — He hung up. An hour later, the computer called back. He hung up again.

That night he couldn’t sleep knowing that he’d be crying in his dreams, and listlessly opened the yellow pages, hoping that advertisements for fencing tools and chiropractors would swizzle him down into some murky sea of drowse, but those strange spiders of his called hands had their own ideas: ENTERTAINMENT… ESCORT… MASSAGE was what they sought out. It sounded blessed. But he didn’t feel up to driving anywhere, and he didn’t care to pay an escort girl to drop by. The next afternoon business was dead, as usual, so he got in the car, drove to the gas station, drove to the supermarket, and then drove to the Tenderloin, where he parked across the street from the Oriental Spa, vaguely supposing that one of the girls might look like Irene. Then he decided to try Jasmine’s Exotic Massage instead. The Mama-san, almost as wide as she was short, stood on tiptoe to view him through the chest-high window before she let him in.

Hi, she said.

Afternoon, said Tyler. How much for a massage?

Forty dollars for forty minutes.

All right, he said. He was pretty sure that she was Korean.

She took him down the hall to a small dark room with a single bed and a radio playing country songs. Then she left him.

The woman who came in next was definitely Korean. Her trick name was Patricia, and she told him to undress. For a moment he thought of the Vietnamese woman who liked wars. He had to give up the forty dollars first, of course, and the woman took that and went out while he stripped to his underpants. She was surprised that he kept those on. She said that she was divorced and that her son was nine years old. — That’s my child with Irene, he thought to himself.

The Korean woman knelt down on the bed and began to squeeze his back.

Your back is so big there must be a million dollars inside! she laughed.

Help yourself, said Tyler. If you can dig out any small change, though, I’ll keep that to buy myself a sandwich.

Pretty soon she was cracking his fingers and toes. She told him that he had nice skin, which wasn’t true, and that he looked young. He put his hand on her generous ass through her tights and she smiled at him. She asked whether he were married. Suddenly his arms were around her and his face was against the strange slick fabric of her dress just below her breasts and he began to feel happy and eased. He stayed like that with her for a long time. He needed comfort so much. What was he but a greyhaired old child? He slid his hand between her thighs and she made a mock-startled expression and shook her head, but she didn’t seem to be angry, so he did it again.

You want to stay with me? she whispered.

Now, how much would that cost? said Tyler.

Maybe too much for you. I’m sorry. One-twenty. I’m sorry so much.

Will you be able to get well paid out of that? I won’t be able to give you a tip then.

Thank you. It’ll be okay.

If you’d rather, I can just give you a fifty dollar tip and go now. The Mama-san doesn’t have to know.

If you can stay, I’m happy, she said. You’re so warm.

Where are you from?

Seoul.

Ann-yeong ha sim nee ka, he said, which means hello. Irene had taught him that.

She clapped her hands and kissed him.

He gave her the money and she went out and came back with no tights on. He took her underwear off and she took his off. — Oh, you not shy there! she laughed. She dimmed the light and lay beside him.

He put his hand gently but firmly on her cunt and began to suck her nipples. — Oh, I like that! the Korean woman sighed. After a while she was screaming with pleasure. Her hips slammed again and again against the bed, so hard that it almost broke, and love-juice drooled out upon his hand. That was no act, he thought, immeasurably grateful that he could please somebody. When her eyeballs rolled up and she ground her head against the wall, he began to need her urgently, and cunt-sucked, then mounted her, coming quickly and pleasantly, though not as ecstatically as she had.

Thank you, they said to one another at the same time.

You want to come see me sometime? he said.

I work very long hours, the Korean woman said glibly. I can’t get out much.

Never mind, he said. But I’m going to give you my P.O. box. If you ever need help or want to see me, write me.

Thank you, she said.

He was out of business cards, so he tore a scrap off one of the surveillance report forms in his briefcase and wrote the information down.

Well, he said, I guess I’ll never see you again then.

In another month I’ll be gone, she agreed flatly. I’ll probably be in Saint Louis.

How long have you been here? he said.

Oh, about one month.

Do you live with your kid?

No. He’s with my husband.

On the way out, she said: If I write to you and you ever see me again, don’t tell anyone we did this.

Okay, he said. Her words gave him hope that maybe she’d get in touch with him.

Don’t forget me, she whispered.

He could have deepened the case against himself, had he been of a self-torturing mind, by reminding himself that moments after he’d climaxed in her arms she was holding out his underwear and then (embarrassingly) putting his unclean socks onto his feet for him, and then before he knew it she was handing him his coat; his money, in short, had been spent; and yet, although he was far from young enough for his sadness to have been entirely alleviated by the sexual act, the generosity with which she’d given herself to him, the happiness and gladness of her body both in and out of sex (she said that she was always happy), the genuine tenderness and care he felt she’d given him as one human being to another suffused him with an even more fundamental kind of hope than that of seeing her again, which he now understood didn’t matter. If he could but trust and believe, not so much, or so carelessly, that the world could hurt him, but enough to open his soul to people like her, then maybe someday he too could be happy. There had been some sort of flavored gel inside her pussy; maybe he’d imagined that orgasm of hers; but whether that was true or not, the important thing was that she had tried to bring him joy.

How long will you stay here? she had asked him after explaining that she couldn’t see him.

I’m leaving town, he lied absurdly.

That didn’t matter, either. She had helped him. She had loved him, inasmuch as one stranger can love another. If there were a heaven, she would undoubtedly go there.

Two or three nights afterward, he dreamed about Irene. They were alone with each other in a valley which was very hot just like the cemetery in L.A., but they followed a creek upstream, and the creek kept foaming green and white with the shadowy reflections of alder branches bending like kelp, whirling deliciously cold breezes at them; and they found a bank of snow-white gravel on which to sit with the white rock faces reflecting starriness and sunniness down upon them. She sat upon his knee. Now it was almost evening, and the cliffs, crevice-speckled with trees, became as white as silver ore, as white as the beaches of glacier lakes. He slipped his arm around her waist. She leaned back against him, her head against his neck; he stroked her hair, which was as smooth and cool as a waterfall. He felt that she would be with him always. He awoke in a state almost of rapture. By mid-morning he had begun to wonder whether he would ever dream about her again.

A sad woman telephoned him. She suspected that her husband might be “seeing” another woman. The grief in her voice sent him plunging into those endless chambers of loss he now knew so well, and he lied: I only do insurance fraud, personal injury. I wouldn’t touch a divorce case.

Please, Mr. Tyler, the woman sobbed. I can’t bear not knowing. My friend Selena Contreras recommended you; you helped her…

Do you listen to your husband? he asked her.

What do you mean?

Do you make him feel good when he’s around you? Wouldn’t you rather—

I can’t stand it. It’s too late for that. I just need to know.

Have you ever discovered something about a person you’ve wished you didn’t know?

Stop it!

Well, are you better off knowing or not knowing? I’m trying to help you, ma’am.

I want to know. I need to know.

Well, then, you already do know. I’ll tell you why. First of all, if you suspect it, it’s probably true. Whether or not they’re having intercourse together, they’re doing something.

Oh, my God, wept the woman.

Think about it. If you still want me to check your husband out, call me in the morning.

The woman never called again. Tyler went to bed and for some reason dreamed of John’s angry face.

But after that, he began to have good fortune. He got two adultery cases in one afternoon, with satisfying retainers for each. Neither one made his heart ache. The landlord came over and fixed the toilet for the second time and it didn’t leak after that. On Monday evening he called Dan Smooth.

Well, are we ready to dot the i’s? said Brady. This is an obnoxious place. Who designed this place? I wouldn’t eat dinner here if you paid me. Well, maybe if you paid me. I’m not that particular.

John laid down the legal draft. — What’s the consolidated leverage ratio? he asked.

We’ll get to that.

John thought this red-faced entrepreneur to be a true original, a driven winner who did not need any other human being to make him full partner. Brady’s manner and his grand project exuded a sense of freedom which made John dream about someday trying his own luck in the financial jungle, of throwing up law and making millions by discovering or creating new desires in his fellow citizens. Was Brady playing a clean game? Well, in business how could games be clean? For that matter, weren’t all life’s gamepieces equally ordure-stained? How had Irene treated him? And that crooked Hank… Perhaps what really attracted him to Brady was the other man’s rage. (At the same time, of course, the man bored him, because everybody bored John.)

And another thing, Mr. Brady, he said. I’ll need a more thorough financial statement. Now, this revolving credit facility you’re talking about here, that’s fine, but I need you to break down these quarterly fees. That’s a lot of money right there.

I promise you this, said Brady. We’re going to keep a pretty goddamned low overhead expense to sales ratio. And we’re gonna keep our eyes on the gross margin returns.

Fine, but that has nothing to do with quarterly fees.

I honestly don’t know about that one, son. Let me find out.

No problem, said John making two tickmarks on the yellow pad. He was particularly fond of his mechanical pencil, which, slender, octagonal in cross-section, and gunmetal-hued, with inlaid lozenges of rosewood, had been a present from Irene. — And we still need clarification on some employee issues.

What issues? said Brady in surprise. What employees? It’s all going to be virtual reality, remember?

That’s fine, said John. But what about the bartenders, waitresses, hostesses, janitors?

Some day they’ll all be robots, Brady said dreamily. You know, I had lunch with that Alexis Dydynski, a very intimate lunch. Know who he is?

No, I don’t, Mr. Brady, said John, looking at his watch.

Executive Vice President at the Royal Grand. You remember when that place opened? Oh, it was a big brouhaha, but that’s another story. It’s not my policy to tell more than one story at a time. Anyway, Dydynski said to me: Slot machines don’t ask for raises, don’t get pregnant, don’t get sick, and always show up for work. — And I thought to myself, John: Here is one smart man.

All right, said John patiently. See if you can get a formal employee policy together. — And he made another tickmark on the yellow pad. — Now if you would, Mr. Brady, I’d like you to glance over clause three.

I don’t give a shit about that part, either, said Brady. That part is your job. Just make it all ironclad. This business is going to last hundreds of years. I’m thinking big.

What’s the working lifetime of your virtual staff?

Oh, five years. Maybe less. But in five years we’ll want to update the theme park with even more state-of-the-art experiences. Look. The theme park only cost three hundred and eighty-seven million. The real question is this and I hope you’re considering it: Who’s against us?

I don’t know what you’re talking about, John said.

Look. Every business venture has friends and enemies, right? So who are our enemies? Casinos? Department of Parks and Recreation? Gambling Commission? Women’s organizations? Rightwing Christians? Leftwing Christians? The Teamsters? I want this document to be enemy-specific. Do you see what I’m driving at?

You sound apprehensive, Mr. Brady.

Well, of course there’ll be various claims and actions against the company. But I don’t think they’ll have a leg to stand on. If they do, why, young John, you and I can kick that leg out from under…

Not my department. By the way, I think you ought to insist on the right to extend your leases up to at least fifteen years, John said.

At escalated rents?

Well, Mr. Brady, of course they’ll have to be escalated, unless you hold a gun to their heads. But that’s fine. If you lost the lease, you’d be paying escalated rents at a new site anyway.

All right, we’ll cut a deal. Let’s meet for breakfast at the Mark Hopkins on Wednesday, seven a.m. I’ll do my homework on consolidated leverage, employee guidelines and quarterly fees. You do yours on enemies.

John walked back to the office and told Mr. Singer that the Brady contracts were going to bring in many, many more billable hours.

I love the law, said Mr. Singer.

Again he drove to Sacramento with its black parking lots given meaning by cars, its malls so thoroughly placed and identical in composition that every three or four miles one thought to be back at the same retail outlets no better or worse than the cigarette-burned pillowcases of San Francisco’s whore hotels; and the night was hot and still. His mother slept. Dan Smooth sat out on his back porch on Q Street, drinking rum.

Right on time, said Smooth, or at least I presume you’re on time, because I can’t see my watch. It’s been a bad summer for gnats, I’m sorry to say.

Well, maybe the next one will be better.

Spoken like an optimist — hee, hee! And I’m just the opposite. I know I’m not your type, but you can’t do without me, can you?

I’ll hold judgment on that, Dan.

And did you decide anything?

Yes, I did.

Well, tell me about it later. She moves around a bit, you see, Smooth explained. Hops around, like a lap dancer. You can’t always say where she is, but you can find where she is, if you see the distinction.

Yeah, I get it, said Tyler, longing to look at his watch. He thought of the old criticism of Wagner: great moments and horrible half-hours. With Smooth the moments were horrible, too.

You plan to fuck her?

Well, your photo didn’t really turn me on, Dan. No offense. I’m sure she’s a nice Queen, though. I guess I’d just as soon keep it all business.

What does turn you on, Henry? queried Smooth, something moving in his face like the crawling silver shadows on a barmaid’s chin of the change which she is counting behind her half-wall.

As I said, I’d rather keep this thing professional.

Oh, get off your high horse! What are you afraid of? Don’t you realize that you have the look in your eyes of a man who has sexual relations with prostitutes, and don’t you know that other men who do the same can always pick you out? You bear the Mark of Cain, brother!

Tyler grimaced.

Have a shot, Henry?

All right.

There. Now what turns you on?

What turns you on, Dan? Child molesting?

I want to tell you something. I can tell a great deal about a man by his face. Not just his eyes, but his entire face. His mouth, for instance. I like to inspect a man’s mouth. I can see from your mouth that you like to go down on women. I can see all their itty-bitty pubic hairs stuck between your teeth! (Oh, I could talk endlessly about textures. Maybe I don’t have a moral sense, but that’s normal. Maybe I do have one, but if so where did I put it?) I see I forgot to offer you a shot. Help yourself. Well, as I was saying, how do I know you don’t suck guys? Well, because you never did come on to me, and I know I’m quite attractive. Elementary, as Sherlock used to say. You don’t like me, do you, Henry? I can tell that from the color of your nose. You see, most other men, if they want something from me, they brown-nose me a little. Why else do you think my asshole’s so clean and shiny? They pretend not to mind — oh, they just have to pretend. Grin and bear it when I talk about what I talk about. But your nose is a good honest pink drinker’s nose, and not a bit of shit on it. Now, as for your ears, Henry, I regret to tell you this, but you have envious ears. I’m not going to tell you how I know that, though, because old Dan Smooth’s got to have a few secrets in this world, just to keep the ears of his fellow man envious. And as for children, to answer your question, no, I can’t tear myself away from them. If I were going to be marooned on a desert island and I could take only one food with me, you know what it would be? The earwax of a ten-year-old child.

What if it came out of envious ears? said Tyler.

Interesting case! But you still haven’t answered my question.

That’s just how Brady used to talk to me.

Maybe because we each have something you need. Maybe my ageing eyesight’s not so good. Maybe there’s brown on your schnozz after all, brother. Maybe there’s brown stuff packed way up between your nostrils—

All right, Dan. What turns me on is a sincere woman. That’s all.

And what does she smell like?

You know, Dan, a lot of people on this earth fall in love with each other first and then have sex afterward.

But not you, Henry — ha, ha, not you! Remember, I can see your Mark of Cain glowing right now in this darkness! It’s brighter than my bug-zapper light! So don’t lie to me, buddy, because we’re both children of the same wicked God. Are you trying to deny that you care what they smell like?

That’s right.

How about a high-grade armpit? Like roast coffee, almost — well, it depends on the—

Usually I shake hands instead of sniffing armpits, Dan.

Oh, then he likes mannish women. Office types, in executive blazers. But they use deodorant. Old Dan doesn’t like that one bit. And you say it doesn’t matter?

It’s not my number one concern.

So you’d do it with anyone then. You’d fuck anybody no matter how she smells. Talk about perversion. Talk about obscenity. This man dares to get sarcastic with me because I have certain fantasies regarding children, when he himself is nothing but a — I have no words — a mere functionary! There’s something inconsistent about you — yeah, yeah, something brutally untrue. And you deny it; you deny your own animal nature. I disgust you, but what’s inside your guts? Children of the same God, I said! And the Queen, she can see your Mark of Cain! That’s why she stayed away from you, because she’s good. Whatever she does, she — oh, what’s the use of explaining it to you? You don’t see me as a human being; I’m just your way station. So. Where’s my reward?

Right here, Dan. These Swedish postcards.

Well. Well! That was thoughtful. Are they illegal?

Probably. I didn’t flash them at any cops—

Where did you get them?

From a friend.

How nice of him. Or her. Let me go inside and look at them. You wait here.

Give her this, said Smooth, returning a quarter-hour later. It’s just glass, but she’ll know what it is. Give it to some whore, and make up a good line, so the whore’ll think it’s something important, you see…

The sheets smelled of body odor. The closet door yawned and creaked. He turned on the television at once and kept it loudly going at all times, so no one would know whether he was there or not — better that they assume he was there, so they didn’t break in. The door was barely held together by a pair of angle-nailed planks, and the bolt came out of the lock with a single tug.

He hadn’t stayed at the Karma Hotel in a couple of years. He was ready to essay it again after his less than sleep-filled night at the Rama. The Karma had once been filled with the scents of fresh Indian cooking, but it didn’t smell like curry anymore, and the old lady wasn’t stirring her pot of beans, and her daughter no longer wore a sari, nor did she bear the round red caste-dot on her forehead. America the melting-pot, thought Tyler to himself. The daughter looked older, dirtier, and angrier.

Can I help you? she said, neither recognizing him nor wanting to help him.

You have any rooms?

I.D., she said.

(That was new. They never used to ask for identification.)

He passed her his driver’s license and she wrote the number down, after which at her curt demand he surrendered twenty-five dollars. Last time it had been eighteen.

His room stank. On the television, a woman screamed.

It was almost sunset. Leaving the television jabbering away, he descended to Capp Street and found a girl.

My room? the girl said.

No, come up to mine, he said. I’ve got all the equipment there.

What, are you into S & M or something like that?

Something like that, he said.

Where you staying?

The Karma.

They don’t let me in there.

Well, let’s try.

What the hell, the girl sighed. Just as a tired barmaid draws her paper towel across the beer cooler in slow arcs, with untouched space in between, so Providence had incompletely abscessed this person, who still possessed many strangely healthy places on her thighs here bared to the open air.

What’s yours, said Tyler, looking her over acutely, heroin?

Yup.

How many times a day?

Just five.

Well, that’s not too bad, he said.

They went back to Mission Street where at the street-grating he rang the buzzer, and someone let the lovebirds in, so they ascended the stairs to the second grating, which buzzed at their approach like the wing of an immense metallic insect, and then they were inside and facing the half-door behind which there had once been the smell of Indian cooking.

Can I help you? said the same woman.

Mutely, he showed her his key.

Don’t get smart with me, the woman sneered. I was nice to you before, but now I see what kind you are. You see this notice on the wall? NO VISITORS. You know what we call men like you? Trash collectors.

You gotta pay for my visit, idiot, the whore said.

He gave the woman a five, which she snatched with a snotty look. (He’d heard that the city planned to condemn this place.) Then she turned her back on them both, which he interpreted as permission granted for their private and consensual proceedings.

In his room the television was screaming again, because a murderer was eviscerating someone.

Pay me first, the girl said.

He gave her twenty.

Well, you gonna unzip or am I supposed to do that? she said.

You know the Queen, don’t you? he said.

Oh, great, the girl said. Another fucking cop trying to jack me up.

From his night bag Tyler withdrew a fat manila envelope called “EVIDENCE.”—This is from Dan Smooth, he said, breaking the seal. Can you remember that name? And I’m Tyler.

Tyler, huh? How about if I just call you Blowhard?

I thought that was your job, said Tyler.

He upended the envelope over the bed, and a fat blue crystal fell soundlessly out. — Now, this is one of the missing jewels to her crown, Tyler explained. You wouldn’t want to steal a jewel from your own Queen’s crown, now, would you?

The whore just stood there holding the twenty.

Now, am I a cop or not? he said.

You? You stink of cop.

All right. Fine. If I’m a cop, can I catch you anytime or not?

Not if I run fast enough, sucker.

If I put the word out, you’ll end up at Eight-Fifty Bryant faster than you can put a rubber on with your tongue.

I believe you, officer. You bastards always have all the power. But I’m no rat. I’d rather be put away than rat on my Queen.

No one’s asking you to be a rat, honey.

So what do you want? You want me to blow you and give you back the twenty? God knows, I’ve had to do it before.

I want you to take this jewel to the Queen, he said. Then you can do whatever she tells you to do. If you don’t take this to the Queen, if you keep it for yourself, then I’m going to have a problem with you, and once I tell the Queen, she’s going to have a problem with you, too. And tell her I’ll be waiting here.

That bitch downstairs isn’t gonna let me in again. You gonna give me five so I can—

That’s possible. Okay. So I’ll be waiting on Capp and Sixteenth in two hours, say, ten o’clock. If the Queen wants to give me any message or see me herself, she can find me there. So here goes the jewel back in this envelope, and there’s a letter in there, too, in case you forget my name and Dan Smooth’s name, and, darling, here you are.

Queen or no Queen, it’s getting old doing this, he thought — older if no Queen. I’m getting old. Open the night case. Unlock the hard case and open that. That’s not breaking the law, exactly, because a hotel room is a residence if you’ve paid for it, and even in California a citizen is allowed to play with his own possessions at home. The slide is open. Firmly thumb-nudge fifteen rounds into the magazine, which now waits ready to be fed into that oily hole, so do just that, then thumb the catch to close the slide: snick—a much less noisy sound than the bolt-slam of a street-sweeper shotgun, but authoritative nonetheless, and comforting to the proposective user. Now squeeze the release stud; catch the magazine as it returns to you, reborn from the grip. Fourteen rounds in it now, one left behind; add another copper candy (I recommend exploding hollowpoints). With the heel of your hand, shove the magazine back inside. Sixteen rounds, one of them chambered. Here it is now, your cold heavy little underarm pal. What would Smooth say about the smell of that? Zip up your jacket and look in the mirror to see how obvious the bulge is. If you feel so inclined, wash the lead off your fingers by means of this sink whose porcelain is stained yellow by the piss of whores and johns. Increasing the volume on the television, which now offered for his moral furthering a science fiction program about men kept as sex slaves in a world of beautiful hungry women, he went out, locked the door as far as it was capable of being locked, descended past the Indian woman, who cried out: Is she gone yet? If she isn’t, you’re gonna have to pay double. Is she still in your room? and after passing through both gratings, which is to say semipermeable steel membranes, found himself gazing upon the red letters of the Walgreens pharmacy shining like stars, the tail of the “g” flickering. A rush of hatred for everything he saw spewed out of his soul, spreading like the concentric circular patterns of the subway station’s tiles until it had reached the farthest building that he could see. Everything stank. A homeless man’s fat dog ran past as quickly as a whore can stuff fifty bucks down between her tits. His owner, vainly seeking to overtake him, stumped along on crutches, a bedroll upon his shoulders, cursing. Right at the curb a quartet of mariachi musicians in white cowboy hats formed and began singing loudly, their blank faces and sadly drooping moustaches as red as new bricks in the rain. The red Walgreens sign made them redder. Now the night-leaners began to come out from their burrows, thickening the bases of lampposts while they got the lay of the land, then striding shadow-legged across the light-stained street…

Five minutes before ten. He walked down Sixteenth past the old theater and waited. No whores at all, he saw; perhaps there’d been a sweep; let’s see, it was getting on the end of the month, so their general assistance checks ought to have been long spent by now; where were they? A sweep, then; this was an election year.

Across the street an addict was mumbling, his words, like Dan Smooth’s, reminiscent of the structure of graphite, which is to say comprised of slender hexagonal plates of atoms which slough off at a touch like the multitudinous crusts of a Turkish pastry.

Then, at long last, the tall man came, tall as some dancer on stilts, that tall dark man who moved with easy intelligence, flaunting under his arm, his long grey arm which drooped down like a freeway off-ramp, the envelope called “EVIDENCE.”

Tyler raised his hand, like a parachutist about to pull his rip cord. — I’m the one, he said.

I’m not here to hurt you, the tall man said. She’ll see you now.

You work for her?

You asking my business? said the tall man.

If you want to take me someplace, I’ve got a right to ask what you do. I’m not messing with anybody’s business. You can ask that chickie who brought you the envelope if I treated her wrong.

She went and told me you didn’t pay for her time, the tall man said.

Well, I gave her twenty, Tyler said. You can either believe me or not believe me.

Matter of fact, I believe you. And I’m gonna tell the Queen, too. That white bitch can lie on her own time. Now, I don’t have all night. You coming or not?

I’ll walk with you, Tyler said.

The tall man slipped the envelope called “EVIDENCE” under the windshield of an abandoned car, and began to walk rapidly down Capp Street, never looking back. Tyler followed as quickly as he could. At Eighteeth they turned south and continued all the way to the old mayonnaise factory at Harrison without speaking, and then the tall man said over his shoulder: You a cop?

Nope.

You a vig?

What’s that?

Vigilante.

Not me.

That’s good. We don’t have much use for vigs.

They kept walking, street to side-street, side-street to alley, and then suddenly they were in a tunnel that Tyler had never seen before, shiny-scaled like the Broadway tunnel upon whose walls crawled the ghosts of cars and the squiggly fire-lines of reflected tail-lights; but here there was no traffic, although from somewhere came the dull ocean-boom of many vehicles; no, it was stale air from many ducts, or maybe traffic from elsewhere coming through by conduction. The tunnel was narrow, and they went in single file, the tall man’s heels ahead of him clapping lightly down upon plates of textured metal, the ceiling rainbowed with all the colors of dirty gold. Far ahead of them, he saw a shaveheaded woman carrying a suitcase. She vanished into one of the square tomblike openings which had been so occasionally spaced into the yellow walls.

What about the octopus-minded of this world? They were wriggling their fingers, which were as thick and cold and white as the bars of a hospital bed. What about Tyler and Brady? Well, they were as confident (or unwary, perhaps) as the legs that marched, ran, trudged and danced across that spidery whirr of shade on the sidewalk where a maple’s leaf-souls shimmered and shook in the shadow of a breeze; the legs were darkened and eaten by it as it trembled; what if the sidewalk opened suddenly there like a rotten decomposing glacier? Three policemen walked through the shadow, and their navy blue unforms became darker. What if a world tore itself open right beneath their shiny shoes? Deep within, we might find people living according to the same cultural laws as that species of slavemaking ants called Formica (Polyerges) rufescens, about which Darwin wrote: This ant is absolutely dependent on its slaves; without their aid, the species would certainly become extinct in a single year. The males and fertile females do no work of any kind, and the workers or sterile females, though most energetic and courageous in capturing slaves, do no other work. They are incapable of making their own nests, or of feeding their own larvae. Down, down! A spider-girl’s chin pressed itself against the floor, eyeballs rolling. Tyler experienced the same feeling that he always had when after a long browse in the secret, cozy, and almost airy Poetry Room upstairs at City Lights where the window looked out on brick walls, a flat roof, and above everything a row of beautifully dancing laundry — he was almost in the sky, the world muffled and distant — he then passed the row of black and white Beatnik postcards and began to descend the long steep black-treaded stairs which pulled him down past clumps of newspapers and manifestoes, down, down, back into the world. When the old nest is found inconvenient, and they have to migrate, it is the slaves which determine the migration, and actually carry their masters in their jaws. So utterly helpless are the masters, that when Huber shut up thirty of them without a slave, but with plenty of the food they like best, and with their own larvae and pupae to stimulate them to work, they did nothing; they could not even feed themselves, and many perished of hunger. Huber then introduced a single slave (F. fusca), and she instantly set to work, fed and saved the survivors, made some cells and tended the larvae, and put all to rights. What could be more extraordinary than these well-ascertained facts?

What should I draw? said the Queen aloud. Something like a shark or a stingray. Nothing cute. My girls don’t like nothing too cute. What’s gonna make Domino happy? What’s gonna make Strawberry come? What’s gonna make Kitty some fresh money? — Magic marker in hand, she upstretched against the concrete wall behind the grating, straining upward in her high heels so that her fringed skirt danced, smiling a little as she drew. She did the charcoal-colored eyes as far above her head as she could reach. The fringes quivered against her buttocks. Her little feet silently slid upon the light-pocked concrete.

A woman with two shadows raised and lowered her arm with a strangely mechanical air. Her ankle-length white dress was as porcelain. She froze, turned, seeming to stand on a rotating platform rather than move herself. Her hand-edges chopped air like knives. She bent, bowing to one of her shadows, while the shadow behind bowed to her. Now she joined with her shadow, becoming a vast writhing mound.

What is it, Sapphire? asked the Queen.

The porcelain woman covered her face and giggled. Then she began to stammer: S-s-s-some-b-b-b-body…

Oh, somebody’s here, huh? What a good girl. Always looking out for your Queen. C’mere, baby. Queen’s gonna kiss your pussy…

L-l-l-uh…

Love you, too, Sapphire. Lemme kiss you. Quickly now. Can’t keep guests waiting.

The girl approached, shyly scuttling sideways, timidly entered the Queen’s arms. Sweat formed like milk on her porcelain face, and her pale legs began to writhe in the darkness.

Uh-uh-uh. Oh. Oh. Oh, oh, oh.

That’s a good girl. That’s my girl. You’ll always be Queen’s little girl. Now go let the man in.

An old, old face, he thought when he saw her; a face without any whites in the eyes anymore, a palish head upon a dark dress. Old, but maybe not so old — but a middle-aged black woman, just as Smooth had said. Older than in the photo — old, old!

What’s your name, please, ma’am? he said.

Africa, replied the woman with a faint smile. I’m the Queen.

She had a codeine girl’s sleepy froggy voice, her perfume and soft crackly sweater further manifestations of the same, a narcotic blood that dizzied with a sweet scent that was half a stench — well, maybe she actually smelled like smoked leather.

Take my cigarette, she said to Sapphire. And go make them be quiet.

The porcelain girl fled, her shining mouth pulsating with strings of mucus. Distant whispers ceased, and the silence crawled in his ears like sweat.

So there’s this guy who wants to do business, Tyler said. Mr. Brady’s his name. One of those losers with money. I don’t like him and I guess he doesn’t like me, because he fired me, but he’s been looking for you.

Are you the one who wrote me those letters? said the Queen.

Yes, ma’am.

And you beat up one of my girls, she said.

No, that was him. That wasn’t me.

But you set her up to get beaten up.

I have some responsibility for that, he admitted. I thought he was too dumb to know the difference. I didn’t know you were for real, and I thought she could fake it and he’d pay her and then she’d give me a kickback. I’m sorry. I looked for her after that, but I never saw her. If you can tell me where she is, I’d like to make amends. Financial amends.

You’ll make amends to me, the Queen said.

Here’s two hundred bucks, he said, pulling out ten twenties. I wish it could be more. But I didn’t beat her up and this is my money which I’ll never get paid back and work hasn’t been going very well lately.

What kind of work?

I’m a P.I.

Take his money, Justin, said the Queen.

He saw the tall man’s hand. He began to count money into it, and a flashlight shone upon the bills by magic.

The flashlight wandered. Hunched and kneeling, with her hands over her face, the porcelain girl was a whitish thing, a strange staring thing, her dress like a sail catching in a breeze. It widened as she leaned back and spread her legs. Imperceptibly it stretched, like a sail catching air. Her eyes almost closed, her wrists gripped one another in turn. Then she began to masturbate. In the stillness, Tyler could hear the creaking of her shoes. She began to club her temples with her bent wrists, like a wrought-up windup doll.

You’re carryin’ a piece, the Queen said.

Yes, ma’am.

Justin, take his piece.

Tyler hesitated for a moment. Then, deciding to see matters through, he drew the gun out, careful to keep it downpointed.

Mind if I make it safe? he asked.

Go ahead.

He dropped the magazine out, brought the slide back to unchamber the sixteenth round, put magazine and cartridge into his coat pocket, handed the tall man his gun.

And you’re Tyler? said the Queen.

Yes, ma’am.

And the fellow lookin’ for me?

Jonas Brady from Missouri. That’s his name, ma’am. You know him?

Sure I know him, she said with a grin. Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp…

He heard a sharp click, and tensed, believing for a moment that somebody had loaded his gun, but then the omniscient flashlight showed him a drop of water trembling on the concrete ceiling; when it fell to the floor its echo harshly slammed. He nodded then. The Queen’s eyes glittered ironically.

And why are you here? she said then.

I–I want to know you, he replied, to his own surprise. (That was what he kept expecting Dan Smooth to say.)

Ah, said the Queen.

He waited.

Down on your belly, said the Queen. Hands behind your head.

He obeyed. He was in for anything now. The floor was damp.

Okay. C’mere. Stay on your belly. Crawl over here like a worm. Closer. Now slide your hands down back of your neck. Raise your head and look at me. Can you see me? Now I’m going to spit in your mouth. I want you to raise your head and open your mouth wide for me like a little baby bird.

She leaned forward, her eyes hurting and confusing him, and her face descended, her eyes shining almost malignantly, and then her full lips began to open and somebody shone the flashlight on them and her lower lip began to glisten with spittle, and then a long slender thread of it crawled down from her lip, with much the same speed as a spider descending its strand, and he was shocked to find how much he wanted that spittle inside his mouth. He didn’t even know why he wanted it. Warm and thick, it began to coil round and round upon his tongue. He felt it before he tasted it. She leaned closer, her face above him like a falling planet so that she was almost kissing him. Then a foaming frothing tide of saliva spilled into his mouth as she breathed on his face. Her breath smelled like cunt. Her spit tasted like cunt.

Later, when she let him go out, he saw the spider-girl advancing on her chin, on her knees and on her palms.

He drove home, dropped two credit card bills into the trash, opened an official-looking letter which crowed: IMPORTANT NOTICE! You may already qualify for our unique Debt Consolidation Loan up to $500,000 NATIONWIDE! (he filed that likewise in the garbage), and then, gazing out the kitchen window at the creeping silver ocean-fog, he tapped his ballpoint against his teeth and added to the details description sheet:

Now, the court thing, I have absolutely no control there, Dan Smooth was saying on the phone. And I don’t have the time to get involved.

He hung up. — FBI turds, he muttered.

Lacing his fingers together, he then surveyed Tyler and said: How did it go?

I saw her, said Tyler. I don’t know what to make of it.

I like you more and more, Henry. You don’t bullshit. Sit back, relax, pour yourself some Black Velvet. Working man’s drunk. I want to finish watching this. I was right in the middle of the good part when that administrative bitch called. Speaking of bitches, how’s Mugsy?

How do you know the name of my mother’s dog?

It’s in your file, fella. Right under the note about Black Velvet.

You’ve been spying on me?

For the Queen, agreed Smooth. He turned the knob of the dusty old television set, which was not quite at arm’s length from his eyes, and indented the blue button of the videocassette recorder. The movie resumed.

The girl shook her hair out of her eyes as the man put his penis into her butt. There was not any sound.

Imagine videoing this, said Smooth. Imagine the happiness.

Tyler sighed and poured himself a drink. — Yeah, just imagine, he said.

Let me find this, muttered Smooth. Just one second. Now, see, what I’d really like to find here…

A young boy’s milk-white buttocks were wiggling

There was one other kind of really really bizarre scenario, said Smooth. It involved lots and lots of toilet paper. No, you really have to see this.

Here were glowing aliens, shimmering green watercolor-light; the aliens kept bowing toward each others’ middles.

To me this is really erotic, said Smooth. Really really erotic. Almost always, part of it is the fantasy aspect. Now, in this one, I’m the father and he’s the bad boy. I’m saying right here: Are you ready for a B.M. fantasy? and he says yes. I say, lean back in the chair. He says: Danny, I’ve had this fantasy, too.

You think he meant it or he was saying it to get more money out of you?

I think he meant it, Henry. I wasn’t paying him anything.

Tyler refilled his glass.

He’s already fourteen, Smooth went on. I still love him. These things happen. Also, as I was telling you earlier, the whole thing happened in my mind.

You mean he’s just virtual?

Well, it’s a confessional time for me, said Smooth almost shyly. I also really don’t want to like fuck up and do something evil. This scenario is…

His voice became silent for a moment. Then he said: I’ve never hurt anybody, Henry.

I believe you, Tyler said. I guess I’m a Canaanite, just like you said.

The Queen saw that right off, Henry. Don’t think she didn’t. You’re in now, boy.

Smooth swallowed, drummed his fingers, and gazed into Tyler’s face very very earnestly. Finally he whispered: See, there is this other thing. The Queen is so gorgeous sometimes. And always so special to me.

Down the hall from the room upon whose door a sign read DO NOT DISTURB — I DON’T HAVE NOT A THING — PLEASE DON’T KNOCK there was a room on whose door somebody had written and taped a sign which read IF YOU WANT SOMETHING, DON’T ASK. IF YOU REALLY NEED IT, GO ELSEWHERE and across from that door was a door charred and kicked and smeared and scraped, whose upper half had been replaced by plywood already splintered by abuse, and whose doorknob had given way to a handle held in place by two Phillips head screws now worked half out; Tyler had had to turn them in again with the point of his pocketknife; and inside that room, rendered holy by an incandescent doughnut in place of any lightbulb, Dan Smooth was sitting at the foot of the bed like a wise grave doctor; and the junked-out whore named Sunflower, who’d a quarter-hour before stirred the white lump into the rust-colored liquid in the bottlecap, heaped it to bare lukewarmness, and fed it to her hungry arm on the second stab, now lay on her side mumbling so sadly in a soft hoarse voice; she was naked because Tyler had given her money for the dope, and so when she came with him she’d stripped by habit; it was likewise by habit as well as concern that Tyler sat stroking her pimpled buttock as he would have stroked the forehead of a good dog or a sick child, as he would have had somebody stroke him if he could have found anybody like Irene, whom he could have been a good dog to.

… ’Cause I slept there all night, he bought me a burrito and then he told me: That’s four dollars right there. That’s how he treated me, the whore said. Are you listening to me?

Yeah, I’m listening, sweetheart, said Tyler.

Sighing, Dan Smooth got up and began to piss gently into the sink. When he had finished, he stood there for a moment buttoning his fly. Then he lightly tapped his fingernail against the faucet.

The whore’s eyes jerked open in terror. — Is that a knife? she said.

It’s okay, Tyler said.

What is it? Is it a gun? Is he loading a gun?

No, honey. He’s just making music in the sink.

Oh, said the whore, subsiding. He heard her weary breathing. He liked her and was sorry for her. She was twenty years old and looked fifty. She was ruined.

I have so much respect for you and the both of you that I trespass with, she said with an effort.

I respect you, too, Sunflower, he said.

Hey, can you pop this zit on my butt?

This one? It’s pretty flat.

I want the white stuff to come out, the whore fretted. Can you pop it for me, please?

Okay, said Tyler, setting thumb and forefinger pliers-like about the red spot and digging into the flabby flesh. Nothing came out.

Is that better? he said.

Yeah, that’s a lot better, she sighed. Feels like lots of white stuff came out. You wanna know me? You wanna listen to me? Are you listening to me?

Here I am, Sunflower. Here I am listening.

My father fucked my sister first time when she was five. He fucked her doggy-style, and he put his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. Her pussy was all bloody and her asshole was all bloody. There was blood coming down to her knees. Then he fucked me when I was five, and then he fucked my other sister when she was five. But my other sister went and told on him. So me and my sister told my father not to do that no more…

And he listened to you?

Yeah, the whore said. Tears boiled out of her eyes.

He stopped fucking your sister? said Tyler gently.

Yeah. He, uh, well, he… he…

He fucked you and your older sister instead?

Just me, she sobbed. My sister couldn’t take it. Said it hurt too much. But I–I heard the youngest crying, and when I saw the blood, I knew…

It’s okay now, sweetheart. It’s okay.

I wanna be a shield, she said. I was a shield for my sister, and now I protect all the men who come to me. They give me their pain. It comes out their cockheads. It just hits me. It just hurts me. It stays with me. That’s all I wanna do. I wanna be a shield for all the men in this world, and all the women, and all the kids. They can come and shit on my face if they want to; they can even shit on my goddamned face. You wanna shit on my face?

No thanks, said Tyler, squeezing her hand. That wouldn’t make me feel happy.

But did Maj spit in your mouth?

Yes, she did.

I knew it. I could see it.

She lay still for a while. Dan Smooth opened the tap but no water came out.

Hey, how much did you gimme? she said.

Twenty.

And what about your friend? Why’s he here listening? He was supposed to gimme thirty, and he didn’t give me squat.

He’ll give you ten.

I love you, the whore wept. I love you. I’m so alone and I have so many contacts.

I love you, too, said Tyler, because he would have been her shield, too, if he could.

No! she screamed. Don’t say that! I’m here and you’re not here—

She fell asleep, and began snoring loudly. Mouth open, face flushed, she opened and then re-closed her eyes, sinking into the earth of dreams, her knees studded with immense white circular scars, her black-grimed toes faintly twitching, and in her sleep she continued to scratch at those angry speckles on her buttocks.

Four knocks, and they let the Queen in. The Queen was alone, but three tall black men stood waiting in the hall outside. She was wearing a man’s hooded sweatshirt which shadowed and overhung her dark old face into anonymity. Dan Smooth bolted the door. She put her left arm on her hip, threw her head back and extended her right wrist to be kissed. Tyler got down on his knees to do the honors. — You brown-noser! laughed the Queen, pleased. You heard what our friend says about noses? Hah! Now what about you, Danny boy?

Dan Smooth bent over the Queen’s hand.

The Queen shook her hood off and stood there for a moment, smiling almost grimly. On the bed continued the long, slow, gasping breaths of sleep.

You gentlemen owe me twenty in visitor fees, she said.

This dump charged you?

They always charge me. They don’t know.

One Queen, three bodyguards, cackled Smooth, pulling a twenty-dollar bill from his sleeve.

Good arithmetic, said the Queen. But why can’t you multiply?

They’re not old enough to bleed when I fuck ’em, said Smooth.

Did you get off on Sunflower’s story? said Tyler challengingly. She bleeds from both ends.

You don’t need to pick on him, Henry, said the Queen. Danny’s a good man. Sunflower’s daddy wasn’t. We would have taken care of him but Sunflower didn’t want that. Sunflower’s my baby, she cooed, kissing the woman’s dirty toes.

She turned to Tyler and said: You see what she’s about? You see why she’s good? Jesus Himself ain’t fit to pop her zit like you done. Jesus on the very cross of torture and shame never suffered like she suffered. And I don’t care how much He gave. He never gave like she did. I know her so well. Queen’s come to give her little baby her reward. My baby, my darling little baby. Queen’s heart’s gonna break.

And between the naked woman’s legs she laid five one hundred dollar bills and a baggie with enough China white for Sunflower to kill herself ten times over.

Tyler said nothing. The Queen looked him in the eye and said: It’s up to her. Gotta give her some happiness. If she don’t O.D., she can come back to me for more favors. Queen’ll always take care of her. If she wants to go into rehab she can. If she wants to sell that powder she can. But I know she gonna wanna take that happiness. I know she gonna wanna go home.

He saw that for himself, said Smooth, and Tyler realized now that the Queen, who was both very busy and very subtle, had come not only to see to Sunflower but also to judge him and perhaps to try him more deeply also. Spitting in his mouth wasn’t enough. — I can vouch for old Hanky-Panky here, Smooth went on. He saw the goodness. We don’t none of us have to be riding him. I knew his sad eyes from the first. He and Sunflower have the same sad eyes.

How many are like her? said Tyler.

She’s one of the best right now, the Queen said. Queen’s not gonna tell you all she knows, but there’s several. Well, they wear out. In this town, maybe twenty thirty forty girls are our shields. They take the pain and keep it. They help all the rest. You wanna see how much pain she’s got inside her? Look here.

Partly unzipping her sweatshirt, she reached down her neck and presently pulled out what resembled a copper penny with eyes and lightning bolts carved or engraved into it, and protruding octopus-fashion from its edges many copper wires knotted into tiny holes in the disk; the ends of the wires had been wrapped around what might have been black seeds.

Got any rubbers on you, Smooth? she said.

Let’s see now. Let’s see, the man said, thoughtfully licking his lips. Oh, here’s an old dried out one under the bed. Smells pretty fresh…

Well, whack it against the wall or something. Clean it off.

How about a plain rubber band? said Smooth. I keep one around my address book.

Yeah, that’ll do. Now, tie it around the charm, respectful like. Good. You just watch this, Henry. Don’t say nothing; don’t do nothing. Just observe. Danny, hold the rubber part. Don’t touch the copper, ’cause it’s magic. Now touch it to her. Slowly. No, wait. You do it, Smooth. But she’s used to you, Henry, so you should hold her hand. She’s gonna be scared. Okay, Danny boy. Give him a show. It’s only a show.

Dangling the copper spider by its improvised thong, old Dan Smooth, holding his breath, bent over the recumbent woman and slowly began easing it down above her ankle while the Queen stood praying: In the name of the Mother and the Daughter and the Holy Ghost! and the strands of wire began to writhe and quiver of their own accord. One touched flesh, and then the light flickered and went out, and the stinking darkness exploded with deep blue sparks and Sunflower jerked up screaming like she had that first time when her father sodomized her and in the room across the hall a radio immediately went on loud because they didn’t want to know about any screams. Tyler felt no electric shock. He held Sunflower’s hand as tightly as he could and wiped the tears from her eyes, and then the lights came back on as Dan Smooth took the talisman away and Sunflower fell back on the bed snoring.

She won’t remember nothing, said the Queen. See, that’s all the pain she has inside her. Too much for any human being to get out even by magic.

We take pride in our Queen, because she has the power, Smooth was explaining brightly. Glowing in the darkness. Talk about animal magnetism! Well, believe you me…

It didn’t hurt her, Henry, if that’s what you’re thinking, said the Queen.

What about his pain? asked Smooth, with a sickening mixture of malice and pity. Hank’d be a crybaby if he knew how — look into those eyes of his, Maj; how can we get that pain out of his eyes?

That’s what everybody asks me, said the Queen with brightly bitter humor. — As if I’m not the biggest shield of them all! Well, it’s an honor, I know.

Tyler said nothing. — Of course it’s only his second time, Smooth finally blurted, looking him up and down and shaking his head.

(Outside, in the hallway, an old woman was shouting: Fook a-you, beetch! Goddamn it! Fook-a-you! Oh, I sorry. I fook a-you today, you fook-a me tomorrow. Fook-a I sorry!)

Smooth leaned forward and whispered so that the hot wet breath tickled Tyler’s ear: Now imagine if Sunflower woke up and we knew but she didn’t know that there was a window there.

Certain appearances to the contrary, Dan Smooth was, as Dostoyevsky would have put it, an excellent man. First of all, the loathing which his so-called proclivities caused others to feel was more than counterbalanced by his usefulness to society. The police relied on Smooth, and consequently protected him, on the understanding that he would do nothing indiscreet. Indiscretion meant, for instance, raping and murdering a child. As it happened, Smooth was more bark than bite. He did not merely take pleasure in offending others (other adults, that is); he had a positive need to do so. This characteristic in no way contradicted his general spirit of friendliness and helpfulness; like most people whose thoughts or needs are a little bit odd, Smooth inspired revulsion among the homogenous masses of car-drivers, television-watchers, jurors, and baseball addicts. With children he had a way — or, rather, a quality, for “way” implies method — which drew them to him. On airplanes, infants would drop their pacifiers, reaching out to touch his nose; and when he’d bend to pick up the slobbery things, the children would strain toward his hand. — Are you ready? he’d say to the ones who could talk. — Yeah, they’d say shyly. — Are you ready? he’d whisper dramatically. Are you ready to fly? — To their parents, had they been unaccompanied by their delicious offspring, and had Smooth believed that he could get away with it (for he was realistic to the point of cowardice), he might have said with a pleasant smile: Excuse me, but would you mind if I sniffed your asshole? Dogs do that, you know. — Mostly, being the graduate of many bitter experiments, he kept to himself, and served up silence with the pleasant smile. Take a baby bird in your hands, so that it absorbs your smell, and its parents will shun it to the very death. Take an ant from one nest and drop it in another; the ant-law requires that it be destroyed. Galileo and Göring, Jesus and Socrates, eccentrics, murderers and saints — all must be neutralized by the swarming super-organism in any way possible. Only three paths for such creatures can preserve them. The first is to hide, like terrorists and hermits; the second is to be in some measure needful or powerful, like rocket-scientists, kings and jesters; the third is to defy. Dan Smooth in fact employed all of these strategies. He had many connections, but few friends, and his neighbors did not know his name. The police, as I said, found him useful; few sex crimes investigators were more thorough than Dan Smooth; and his informants in the demimonde and the holy order of pedophiles supplied him with information of a consistently high purity. The famous Kaylin Kohler case, in which a ten-year-old girl from Redding was abducted from her own home, raped, tortured, and buried alive, was solved thanks to a tip from Dan Smooth, whose electronic alias had been Ticklequick; entering a “chat room” from his personal computer, he announced his intention of trading seventy-five cubic centimeters of saliva from a twelve-year-old Caucasian boy named Rodney for an equivalent volume of urine from an African-American female of similar age — or, to quote his message in full:

Hey, pervs! Ticklequick is back! Hv. 75 c.c. vanillaspit (Rodney, guarant’d 12, uncircumc. & hairless) for swap; seek chocopiss from virg. hairless slit 12 & under: MUST BE FRESH. Also NEED NEED NEED photos for swap. PLEASE NO RECOG. HEADSHOTS. Help Ticklequick put lemon on his lips. E-mail Big T!

Under FBI supervision, Dan Smooth spat into several dozen test tubes to furnish the nectar of fictitious Rodney; in exchange the FBI received and analyzed eighteen test tubes of piss, two of which contained significant levels of both testosterone and alcohol, one of which evidently came from a lactating woman, and one of which proved to be so old (the collector who sent it had perhaps kept it in a jar in some hot garage in the Central Valley for twenty years) that it could not be analyzed; these were discarded, leaving fourteen samples whose levels of estradiol, estrone, estriol, and pituitary gonadotropins were consonant with those of prepubescent girls. Thanks to improvements in laboratory techniques, only two of these were disqualified as nonsecretors, meaning that they were so chemically taciturn that not even the blood group could be read; this left an even dozen samples of young girls’ urine, which the FBI grimacingly permitted Dan Smooth to sniff and crow over, arranging the shining test tubes in order from pale transparent lemon to the rich dark orange-brown characteristic of a pure palladium photograph; and of course Smooth made many such comments as: This one ate asparagus for dinner, I know. Ah, if only I could have been there when she peed! — for, as I mentioned, Dan Smooth followed all three strategies, the latter one being bravado and defiance; he was by his nature kin to the killer, the exception being that he did not kill; and so the FBI ran DNA matches on those twelve test tubes of yellow light and dark, and the ninth test tube granted them a positive lock on Kaylin Kohler’s DNA, which led them to one Eugene Kenneth Brewington, who was convicted the following year, sentenced to death, and, after eight years as a guest of the state of California, at great expense actually executed by lethal injection, as a result of which Mr. Brewington’s attorney fell upon hard times and the district attorney, two FBI investigators, one forensic technician, and one field investigator in Redding received promotions, while Dan Smooth received no public acknowledgment whatsoever, but an obscure government draft for twelve thousand dollars arrived in his post office box one day, and a dispute which he was having with the Internal Revenue Service was abruptly decided in his favor, and he received a permit to carry a concealed weapon and a strange sort of untouchable status within the circles of law enforcement, as if he were one of those captive cobras in Bangkok whose venom can be milked for the greater good; and his cachet was confirmed when a hard gaunt FBI woman wanted to investigate and arrest the other eleven finalists in that competition of gold-filled test tubes, but Ticklequick, arguing that so doing would block his channels of information forever, not only succeeded in protecting his peers but even managed to obtain by special courier about two weeks after Mr. Brewington’s execution those eleven vials of vintage for his supposed delectation; needless to say, they had gone sour in that time, and Smooth’s real motive was simply to destroy that evidence once and for all, since he was well acquainted with three of the eleven collectors, and suspected the identities of two more; by the Golden Rule, so to speak, they would have done as much for him. The FBI woman became Smooth’s enemy, but he for his part was so filled with pride and happiness at the way that everything had turned out that he contented himself with a few mild remarks to her, such as: Is it true that you have an eleven-year-old daughter? I’d love to lick her cunt. — Dan Smooth, needless to say, was not stupid. The FBI woman did not have any children, and he knew that; thus his utterance, which came as naturally to him as any disquisition on the weather, could not be considered as any kind of threat. Since he could not have her friendship, he actively courted and received her hatred, so that when he returned to his house in Sacramento it was in a haze of triumph, magnified by his possession of the eleven test tubes, whose contents he immediately decanted and poured down the toilet. The test tubes themselves, which might contain residue even after thorough washing (although, their official seals having been broken, they were unlikely to find use as evidence) he gave to an acquaintance — not a friend, mind you, not a friend! — who, a former member of an armed anti-government militia in Oakland, now lived in Roseville, pursued a lucrative vocation as a non-union electrician, and on weekends experimented with the manufacture of strange and sometimes illegal handgun cartridges. This man had perfected the exploding bullet, the mercury-tipped bullet, the poisoned bullet; he had even for his own amusement hand-loaded special ammunition designed to murder the shooter rather than the target: within the casing’s coppery blankness lay, in addition to the gunpowder, a distant descendant of C-4 explosive guaranteed upon firing to turn a gun into a rapidly expanding constellation of shrapnel. Such cartridges were difficult to test, but Dan Smooth’s acquaintance had worked it all out in his head. Testing would almost have been cheating; unquestionably it would have evinced weakness of faith. The electrician was happy just to keep his little babies in a regular factory ammunition box; nobody knew their nature but he. When Smooth proposed that he create in his bullet-caster an amalgam of lead and brittle glass which would shatter upon contact with flesh, and when Smooth further informed his acquaintance that this was genuine FBI glass, the electrician grinned happily. Smooth stayed to watch the glass be disposed of. The electrician mixed him a rum and Coke, and then he drove home. It was a hot Sunday afternoon. — The earwax of a ten-year-old child, he muttered with a laugh. He sat in the back yard sweating. His tomato-soup-colored tom-cat slept on the grass beside the corpse of a young bluejay which it had slowly tortured and killed. Smooth did not seat himself before his computer keyboard which resembled a grimy ear of Indian corn; he did not become Ticklequick, because he quite correctly supposed that the FBI monitored all his keystrokes. Besides, all that had been simply to protect the Queen. It had been the Queen, of course, who’d found the killer for him. Like him, she received no recognition from the public; she’d acted simply out of goodness. At FBI expense, Smooth had brought her an immense bouquet of red, white and yellow roses, those being the color of his three favorite bodily fluids.

All this sounds perhaps like farce, so perhaps we should look deeper into Dan Smooth’s soul. About his sexual attraction to children it should be said that for him — in his own mind, at least — it had all begun as a matter of moral and intellectual curiosity. It is easy to disbelieve such an explanation, easy to insist that such but rationalizes his evil urge. But since other people ultimately remain unknowable, we may as well accept their own explanations of themselves as first approximations, barring further examination. He read in the newspaper one day about a father convicted of molesting his son and daughter, who were twelve and eight, respectively. The account, typically dry, grim and brief, merely announced that both children bore signs of repeated abuse, and that the man had been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. The mother was dead, apparently. And suddenly Smooth had a vision of the children crying as their father was handcuffed and driven away. They would grow up in an institution, perhaps separated from each other as well as from their father, perhaps beaten up or raped by other children, perhaps not. They would masturbate constantly, Smooth supposed (because he would). How evil had the father been? Suppose — which probably had not been the case — that he had done what he had done out of love. Suppose that he had fed and clothed them, helped them with their homework, listened to them. Suppose that he had witnessed them in sex play with each other, joining in only out of tenderness. Suppose that they had voiced some childish confusion about the difference between boys and girls, or how babies were made, and he had simply instructed them. Suppose that he had not hurt them. Suppose that he had liked it and they had liked it, too. Suppose that what he had done was good. We might well wonder why Dan Smooth wanted to suppose these things. But we do have to grant him the openness of a born scientific investigator in an epoch of harshly preconceived conclusions.

Then there was the married woman who fell in love with her fourteen-year-old foster son. Her husband divorced her. She wanted to marry the boy. He wanted to marry her. When she became pregnant with his child, they threw her in jail for years. Dan Smooth could not understand why.

The curiosity of small children regarding bodily functions frequently presents an erotic component. Smooth’s niece, Darcy, had become fascinated with urination at the age of four. Whenever he came to Atlanta to visit his sister, Darcy wanted to play with him, and he was simultaneously thrilled and frightened by the complicity he read in her smile. If he let himself go, he just might remember something from his own childhood which would draw him into the mirror, where, astonished and conquered by something about himself he’d never before noticed, he’d cry: Aha! — but that never happened. Darcy liked to be carried piggyback. When he lifted her up on his shoulders, she’d wrap her legs tightly around his neck and begin rubbing against him. Sometimes he’d have to go to the toilet, and Darcy cried when he closed the door. He actually had to lock her out. — It’s just a phase that all children go through, his sister said curtly. — When Darcy was five he visited his sister for Christmas, and Darcy’s older sister got the flu, so they left Smooth to babysit while they went to the doctor. Darcy was sitting in his lap watching a cartoon on television, for this happened long before videos, and her body was very little and smooth and soft, and her breath smelled like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She was wearing a red and green plaid dress for Christmas. The hem of it had ridden above her chubby knees. She clamped her thighs around his leg and began to slowly ride him up and down, pretending to look at the television. He did not know what to do. Suddenly she turned her head, and in her eyes he saw that look of darkly shining consciousness, which he had the incredible faith or arrogance to label the look of original sin. He swallowed. Grown women had on occasion looked at him that way, and accordingly infected him with their desire, but never so intensely as this. He did not know what was going to happen, but he knew that whatever happened he would never ever mention to Darcy’s parents. Darcy turned her head back, but she was gazing not at the television anymore, but at her own squiggling crotch. The red and green dress had now retreated into her lap so that he could see her white underpants. Slowly his hand began to move. Smooth could not stop it, and did not want to. His hand descended through the air, inch by inch, and came to rest on Darcy’s soft, pink thigh. The little girl put her hand on his hand and giggled. Then she began to hump his leg faster. His hand swam slowly up her thigh, and now it rested on her panties and he could feel how she was hot and damp there through the flimsy cotton. She opened her legs wider and with both hands pushed his palm firmly against her mound.

Over a beer in a quiet bar, he told a doctor in San Francisco about it — about that much, at least. The doctor regarded him with the same alertly bristling skepticism of any good policeman, knowing or suspecting the rest, and Smooth, not yet hardened, choked out: I didn’t do anything. But she wanted it, you see. I am sure that she wanted it.

The doctor said nothing.

Smooth said: Is that normal?

Of course what you’re telling me is not normal, the doctor said carefully.

Could the kid have wanted it?

Dan, said the doctor, these are dangerous speculations to follow. You know very well that children don’t necessarily know what they want, and that what they want isn’t necessarily good for them. Furthermore, while I’m not a specialist, I would say that if she was consciously aroused and seeking to arouse you as you describe — in other words, if you’re not fudging a little — then she’s already been a victim of abuse. Her father, perhaps…

I know Max pretty well, said Smooth. And he doesn’t bear that mark.

Child abusers don’t bear a mark, Dan. You can’t tell. I could be one, or for that matter you could be one. Do you understand me?

But it’s not very good science, you know, Smooth insisted. If they don’t want it, then you can’t do it to them, because it’s abuse. If they do want it, then they must have been abused. That’s what you’re saying, right?

If ten minutes before dinner your niece wanted to gorge on candy and ice cream, would you let her?

Maybe on special occasions I would.

Dan, Dan!

Why is having sex necessarily bad for a child?

Oh, come off it, Dan! the doctor shouted angrily, and in his face for the first time Smooth saw the look that he would see in the faces of others for the rest of his life.

When I was a boy, I used to jerk off, Smooth said. You know that old saying: Ninety percent of all teenage boys masturbate, and the other ten percent are lying. And when my Daddy caught me, he tied my hands behind my back. I had to sleep on my side for a good two years. When I asked him why it was wrong to jerk off, he got angry, you see, the same as you’re angry now, and he said that it was a sin and that it would make my pimples worse and that it would weaken my eyesight and maybe I’d even go crazy. Now, was any of that true?

Don’t be so hard on your father, Dan, said the doctor with an ingratiating laugh. You’re my age. We grew up before the sexual revolution. And your father — well, everybody thought that then.

But was it true?

Of course it wasn’t true. But that has nothing to do with—

Yes it does. If a child wants or needs to masturbate, you’re saying that that’s harmless, right?

Yes, Dan, said the doctor grimly.

No matter what the age of the child?

No matter what the age of the child.

Then if a child wants to have an orgasm, and you help the child have an orgasm—

And did you have an orgasm when you stuck it up her, Dan? said the doctor wearily. How loudly did she scream? How much did she bleed?

He never saw that doctor again. The next year he didn’t visit his sister, and the year after that Darcy was seven, and in the middle of the night, when he was asleep in the guestroom, Darcy crept in and almost silently closed the door behind her.

Let’s speak of accidents. One sunset at a gasoline station in El Cerrito, they gave Tyler a restroom key and when he turned it in the door a woman’s voice cried: Uh-uh-uh! He stood outside, a little ashamed. — Sorry, he said to her when she came out. I didn’t see anything. — That’s okay. You responded real quick. — Wasn’t Dan Smooth in equal measure a bystander and victim of God’s tricks?

She was wearing her pink nightgown with the dinosaurs on it. He could see its paleness in the dark. Her breath smelled like toothpaste and tomato soup. Gazing at him wisely with shining eyes, she put her finger to her lips as she got into his bed. Instantly she was in his arms, holding him tight as she rubbed up against him, and his penis was hard. He rolled her onto her back, and his hand was on her underpants just like before, and then his middle finger had gone inside her panties, and he brought his hand to his mouth and sucked his middle finger to get it wet and then slipped it between the lips of the child’s vulva, the soft and ever so delicate lips which were to render those of any mature woman so comparatively coarse forever, so rough and hairy and repulsive to him. What was the meaning of how he felt? He was sure that he hadn’t sought this out. He was equally sure that to deny and reject this experience was to do wrong both to Darcy and to himself. He knew that in a moment he was going to slip the panties from the hips of this softly giggling girl. The doctor was wrong. She had never screamed and she had never bled. But then he was equally sure that he was going to send Darcy away. He groaned with anguish, looking into her eyes. Then the doctor’s words crawled inside his skull again like hungry insects, and he thought: I am not sure. I cannot be sure. And to do this and not to be sure is to do wrong.

Clenching his lips, he sat up and removed his hand from his niece’s pants. He sucked on his middle finger again, just to get the taste. Where was the harm in that? The taste was sweet and rich, like sweet and sour fish in a Chinese restaurant. He almost ejaculated.

The panties had somehow worked themselves down to her knees.

You see, honey, it’s time for you to go back to sleep, he made himself say.

No, Uncle Dan. Can’t I please stay with you?

I’m afraid if you stay with me we’ll get in trouble.

I won’t tell, the girl said. I can keep secrets.

That’s good, honey.

So can I stay?

He bit his lip hard.

Can I?

So you never tell secrets? he temporized.

You want to hear a secret?

Yes.

She whispered in his ear: I like playing doctor with you. That’s my secret. It feels good. I want to play doctor with you again. Right now.

Well, honey, go to sleep and we’ll play doctor tomorrow.

You promise?

I promise, he lied. His plan was to pack up and leave the house immediately after breakfast.

The child touched him through the jockey shorts he wore. — I want to play doctor right now. I can’t sleep if I don’t play doctor with you.

Her little fingers spidered so curiously up and down him. — I want to see it, she moaned. Please, Uncle Dan. I want to see it.

Once Dan Smooth had seen a pearl, a new pearl, freshwater or saltwater he couldn’t remember, but it was so small and shining and pink. Wet and pink it had been, with a gleam of light on it that changed according to the angle of his glance. It was so new and clean and pink.

Suddenly Darcy began to wail loudly. — I want to see it! I want to see it!

He heard the bed creak upstairs, and then his sister’s heavy footsteps. Darcy! his sister called. Darcy, honey, are you okay? Where are you, sweetie?

The silence lasted as long as man and child stared into each other’s eyes. The child saw the man’s fear and felt her mastery.

If I keep quiet, will you let me see it? she said.

Yes, he whispered. Later. Now pull up your underpants, quickly.

Darcy! Darcy! called the mother loudly.

He could hear her footsteps coming downstairs.

He had his hand on her underwear trying to pull it back up and she was trying to push his hand away and crying: No, no, no, no! when his sister opened the door.

That had been almost twenty years ago.

One night Smooth told that story to Tyler just as it had happened, but needless to say he had to elaborate upon the rich fresh animal odor of the little girl’s underpants, which approximated the steam-smell from meaty minestrone; and to Tyler’s mind this detail alone condemned the account as a lie, because how would Smooth have been able to sample and savor that smell without seeking it out? He didn’t consider the other equally plausible possibility that Smooth had incorporated this into the old memory, either on purpose, to twit Tyler and amuse himself, or inadvertently over the years, confusing what had really happened with what might have happened, or with what had happened with other little girls who had either liked him, or not.

The next time Tyler saw the Queen, he was looking for a parking place near Eight-Fifty Bryant, where an industrial job required him to check the recent court records of one Earl J. Simmons; and because the police cars had taken every available spot he started round the block, assuming that he would probably have to complete the circle for nothing and then go a different way, when he spied Our Lady whispering into the tall man’s ear in a doorway. The tall man noticed him right away (and once Tyler got to know him he would learn that the tall man never, ever forgot a name or a face). Tyler saw him touch her shoulder and point. She was wearing cheap dark wraparound sunglasses. There was a car behind him, but Tyler rolled down the window and waved. The Queen smiled. Her left hand rose to her cheek, and tilting her head, that gaunt, strange, small woman fluttered her little finger at him in a discreet wave.

That’s it, that’s it! Irene used to laugh when Mrs. Tyler made the dog twitch. There she goes! Oh, Mugsy!

She’s had these spots for a long time, said John. Maybe it’s from where they took out her ovaries or something. There’s something remaining. Are you a cutie? You’re happy, eh? You’re happy.

Fondly he scratched the old dog. John was very good to dogs.

That had been last year. Today Mugsy was at the vet. She had bone cancer, his mother said.

His mother was lying down resting. He felt so sad, so lonely and sad, so sad, watching the silhouettes of trees on the lawn across the street slowly join the darkness. Not so far away, he heard a long freight train.

The newspaper said that somebody else had gotten shot in Oak Park. The newspaper said that Wall Street was worried about the impending economic recovery because if there were more jobs, stock prices might go up, which would be bad for certain Fortune 500 companies, he didn’t understand why.

He went to see if his mother needed anything, but she was asleep, so he got into his car and drove to the Torch Club to have a beer. John had always been more partial to the Zebra Club, which was a jock kind of bar where to triumphant hurrahs the bartenders breast-squeezed pubescent girls on their birthdays and then poured double shots of the young things’ favorite concoctions down their throats as a reward; doubtless they weren’t allowed to do that anymore. Tyler didn’t care either way; John had been one of the hurrahers. But who knew what kinds went into the Zebra Club these days? Tyler found himself driving past, peering into the open door. He couldn’t see anything but he heard happy lustful shouts.

One good thing about Sacramento was that it was always easy to park. He stopped to get a quick shot of Scotch.

The President can’t be acting alone, said the man on the next stool. Who pulls his strings?

Which ones? said Tyler, thinking about Irene.

Who pulls the President’s strings? I’m asking you a question, guy.

The man was very drunk, angry and red in the face. Tyler pretended to give the matter due consideration and then concluded agreeably: Must be the Trilateral Commission.

No! the man roared, lunging. Tyler sidestepped him and tripped him. The man’s head hit the floor hard, and he lay there.

Why don’t you take a walk, guy, said the bartender. I’ll deal with this.

All right, said Tyler.

He went out and wondered what it was that he hoped for from the Queen. Expectation was growing in his heart. He had the feeling that he might be capable of change after all, and the thought of becoming different from what he was refreshed him so deeply that at this fatal moment he agreed with himself that it hardly mattered whether he were to change for the better or for the worse. But what did the Queen have to do with any of it? Suddenly he felt the the breath of evil was on his neck, and he walked down the street shuddering.

He went home and ate low-fat yogurt with his mother, then slept. In the morning he drove to the vet’s to get Mugsy. The dog stank of death. She could barely raise her head.

Well, Mom, it doesn’t look good, he said.

You have to expect those things at Mugsy’s age, his mother said, scarcely looking at him.

Last year, or maybe the year before, Irene and his mother had been lying together on his mother’s couch. John’s sleek little laptop computer glowed on the dining room table, while Tyler sat very slowly picking at his fingernails and staring at the moisture on a cold bottle of beer. The dog pillowed her head in his mother’s lap. Irene said: Mom, what would you do if your dog wasn’t around?

Maybe kiss John and Henry, laughed Mrs. Tyler, but since they’re only interested in working…

Irene smiled, rubbing her eyes.

On that second night, Dan Smooth was at the Torch Club, too. It seemed that one couldn’t get away from Dan Smooth.

Buy you a beer, boy? said the pervert.

You must be feeling flush, said Tyler. Sure, go ahead. I’ve made about two hundred dollars in the last month and a half.

I bet you were just reading about the economic recovery and feeling envious because you knew it didn’t include you. Isn’t that how it was, Henry? Isn’t it?

Come to think of it, Dan, how about if I buy my own beer? And after I pay for it, you can stay here and I’ll go to the Flame Club.

I think he likes me! Smooth stage-whispered to the bartender, who shrugged.

Tyler drank his beer steadily, looking away.

Sunflower woke up, said Smooth.

And then went back to sleep for good, huh?

She wanted it, Hank.

I get it. I don’t know if I agree with it but I get it.

And did you see the Queen again, or didn’t you see the Queen?

Yeah, I saw her. She waved one finger to me.

That means she likes you.

Everybody likes me, Dan, even you. I have so many friends, I keep trying to make enemies.

You know what, Hank?

I prefer to be called Henry, not Hank.

You don’t like me, do you, Henry? Smooth was saying in his wearisome way. Did you know that you just misquoted the old proverb.

I like you fine as long as we stick to business. But we don’t have any business right now, which is why I’m going to the Flame Club.

See you there, said Smooth, rising as if to accompany him.

Tyler sat down, narrowing his eyes. — I never had my very own stalker before, he muttered.

So how can we make your sister-in-law into business? asked Smooth with a cruel smile. I helped you out, you see, and so now I get to sock you in the balls — metaphorically, of course. Did your sister-in-law’s cunt turn you on? Did it have that kind of mohawk pattern of little black hairs that so many Asian women’s cunts have? You know how they shave — well, the whores, anyway. They worry about bikini lines in Asia. Now, me, I’ve always thought that bikini lines have their charm — as zones, you know. I like to see those little black hairs peeking out. It happens sometimes, and it’s even sweeter when the woman’s not aware of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, said Tyler. Your filth gets pretty boring after a while.

Fine. Did you fuck her or not?

Maybe I’ll just go home. If you park in our driveway, that’s trespassing, but if you want to sit in your car and watch the house from across the street, there’s not much I can do. But I’m going to pull the blinds down. You won’t be able to see anything.

Henry, answer the nice man. Did you do your sister-in-law or not?

How many little kids have you popped, Smooth?

It’s childish, you see, to answer a question with a question. And just because you’ve met the Queen twice doesn’t mean she trusts you. I could put in a bad word about you if I felt like it…

And so what if you did? What do I care if the Queen trusts me or not?

You tell me, Henry. But if I want to get you, I’ll get you.

Is that a threat, Dan? I know how to deal with people who threaten me.

Now things are going ugly, Henry, and I don’t want that. I never dreamed of offering you physical violence. But you keep going out of your way to hurt my feelings. Put yourself in my place, Henry. Ask yourself how you’d be feeling.

Aw, he’s going to take his bat and ball and go home. Hey, I did some homework on you, Smooth. I heard about how you raped your own niece a few years back. Now I know why they call you Dan Smooth. At least you don’t use sandpaper. Do you use petroleum jelly when you break ’em in? People like you should be stood up against a wall. You’re a loser, Smooth, a sick, half-wit pervert. Oh, I admit that I’m a loser, too. The crazy whore was right. That shithead Brady was a loser. All I do is hang out with losers.

That’s my little optimist. (Bartender, one more round each, please. Here’s four dollars.) Does it get you hard to deprecate yourself? Does it, Henry? Does it?

Tyler rubbed his grey forehead, turning away. — Thanks for the beer, but I think you and I are through now, Smooth. I know that I owe you a favor. Anytime you want to call it in, call it in. But isn’t it kind of a waste to call it in just by making me listen to you flap your stupid ugly mouth?

Maybe we could be friends, said the older man with a sudden pleading look. I told you I saw that Mark of Cain on your forehead right away, that loser’s mark. You saw it on me. And right now the Queen’s brought us together, but she’s not going to be around forever. You don’t know yet what happens to the Queen.

Tyler leaned on one elbow on the bar. — So that’s what you want, huh? he said with a sour grin. You really want me to be your buddy? For how long? What’s the minimum time I can get away with? And do I have to start this very evening, or do you take rain checks?

Yes, Henry, I know you hang around prostitutes. But you’re not really one of them. When you pretend to be, you just act like a barbarian.

I guess that’s what keeps getting in the way of any possible friendship, Tyler said. You keep condescendingly defining my life, and you also enjoy irritating me by slashing at my privacy. And that pisses me off.

I think you’re implying that I should be more sincere. Well, Henry, maybe I’m sincere, but I just adopt a frivolous tone to protect myself.

Like when you talk about eating kids’ earwax.

Oh, I’ve done it, Henry. You can trust me there.

Yeah, all right. And this morning I took a crap, but I don’t have to go around telling other people about it.

Why not, Henry? I’d love to hear.

As long as we’re being sincere, I guess I believe that that’s true, and it kind of bothers me that it is.

Why does it bother you? You’ve never done anything to bother people?

I couldn’t say that, said Tyler with an almost jeering laugh.

Well then.

But if I do something that I don’t think other people will like, I keep it to myself.

If you needed to deal with me for business you could deal with me?

Sure.

And you have dealt with me. So that proves that you can deal with me, fellow Canaanite. You remember what happened to the Canaanites, don’t you?

Let’s see, said Tyler. Yeah. Yeah, I remember now. The Chosen People exterminated them all, or something like that. Moses got the word. No, they must not have exterminated them all, or there wouldn’t be all those car bombs in the Middle East.

You might be surprised, said Smooth, but I study the Bible a good deal.

No, I’m not surprised.

I know the Bible fairly well. Not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament, too, the real stuff, where God doesn’t hide His naked cruelty behind His Son. Do you believe in the Bible as literal prophecy?

Why, no, Dan, I don’t.

That’s good. I’m glad you’re not a fanatic, Henry. Well, the Queen is quite the little believer. It’s one of her sweetest qualities. (I could talk about the Queen endlessly, by the way.) Maybe that’s why I want to be your friend. I love to talk about my Queen, but I’m supposed to keep her secret, so you’re the only one.

Tyler waited.

I picked up my habit of Bible study from her, the older man continued. She’s a Canaanite, too, you know — did I tell you that? Sometimes I repeat myself. And she’s a witch like the Canaanites were — Baal, Moloch, you name it, she prays to it. I guess that’s why she knows so much about the future. I can see from your expression that you’re just being polite and you don’t really give a rat’s ass about that stuff. Well, that’s fine. But you did come on to me, and you came on to the Queen, and so I suppose you want to study us as if we’re bugs — or study her, at least. Read your Bible, Henry. That’s the best way to know the Queen. That’ll make her happy. And you don’t have to take any of it literally if you don’t want to. Now, as for us Canaanites, well, from our Queen we know that the Chosen People are coming to wipe us out. We may have a few car bombs ready, but I’m sorry to say that eventually they will wipe us out, because we’re the losers. Call it an analogy if you want.

Let’s see, said Tyler. The Canaanites sodomized little kids, too, didn’t they? And burned them alive?

You’re going nasty on me again, Henry.

Fair enough. But it’s true, isn’t it? I’m sorry.

That’s better, Smooth said with satisfaction. That’s the first time anybody’s said sorry to old Dan Smooth in quite some time.

All right. And if it pleases you, I’ll be sincere with you, as long as you’re sincere with me and don’t try to drag anything out of me.

Oh, so it’s not a reciprocal thing, Henry boy? You give me one thing and I have to give you two things?

I won’t try to drag anything out of you, either.

But that’s not fair. I’m loquacious, Henry.

Okay then. Did you feel any remorse when you ruined your niece’s life?

Would you believe that I never touched her?

No.

You’re good. I send lots of love your way. Would you believe that whatever I did to her she wanted?

No.

Well, would you believe it if in return I promised to believe whatever you told me about Irene?

Don’t say her name to me, sonofabitch. I never want to hear that name on anyone’s lips. It hurts too much.

I’m the Queen’s minister of foreign affairs, you know, Henry. Well, one of them. And if I make a recommendation to her about you one way or the other, she’ll probably listen, because she likes me and she doesn’t have envious ears, you see. I distinctly heard you ask her for help. Do you believe in the Queen?

Tyler hesitated. — I don’t know, he muttered. When I see her, I believe in her, in something about her. When I’m away from her, I think it’s all bullshit.

You’re honest, Henry. I like that.

Thanks, Dan. I aim to please.

Spoken like a good whore.

Something else we have in common. We both have a soft spot for Domino.

Ah, said Smooth.

I’m not in love with that girl but I kind of like her. She’s so out there.

She’s had a hard life.

What got her started?

Well, it was very… She was found not guilty, but another judge found her guilty of violating her probation, so first he threatened her with prison, then he stuck her in a drug program, and she ran away…

How old was she then?

Fourteen.

That’s a shame.

You’ve noticed that I never asked why you were looking for the Queen?

Yeah, I noticed.

Then trust me now. Go on, drink that beer. What are you really up to?

I don’t even know myself, Tyler sighed. When it started, I thought that guy Brady was just a sucker and I could give him some thrills and get some money out of him without doing any harm. I never thought there was a Queen. But after a while he half convinced me, and then he canned me. And so I lost my reason for looking for the Queen. No money anymore. Then Irene died, and I needed something to do.

That’s how it is for me with children, said Smooth. It’s just something to do, although now I don’t think I could stop it, even if I were castrated. You heard about this new chemical castration bill they’re debating up here?

Dan, just what do you do with those kids?

Whatever. But only if they want it. I swear that by God and by the fires of all my little idols. And tell me, why do you think Mr. Brady wants to meet our Queen so much?

Oh, he can pay big. Not that I ever got much of it. He wants her for some sex act.

He’s the Chosen One, you see, Dan Smooth explained. He’s come to burn us all out of Canaan.

Silently he opened a Bible, drew his slender forefinger down Psalm 106, verses 34–39:

At Ocean Beach, where Taraval Avenue ended, it was smoky and foggy that night. A small crowd stood around a bonfire which trembled and shivered behind a windbreak of wooden flats. The revelers, who were pretending to enjoy themselves (it was a solstice celebration) were shaking with cold. Sparks scuttered across the sand. Tyler stood on a street-level dune, looking down at them; their smoke stung his eyes. Behind them the dark ocean twitched.

He had never taken Irene here, and yet in his heart the place was somehow associated with her. The night that she and John had come to his apartment for dinner — how long ago now? — and Irene had insincerely praised the overcooked chicken (he burned it! his brother had jeered in reply. Henry, you’ve got to get married!), he’d remembered the lovely red and white herringbone stripes of some codfish fillets he’d seen just that day in Chinatown; he should have bought those instead, but the truth was that he had never cooked a storebought fish in his life. As a boy he’d caught the occasional trout or sunfish up in the gold country; he’d cleaned them and roasted them on sticks over campfires with the other boys; but seafood had made only exceptional appearances in his mother’s home. Those had been the days when — for inland white Americans, at least — the thought of fish conjured up, at best, deep-fried frozen fish sticks dipped in tartar sauce; they’d smelled like wet dogs. The truth was that he’d gone by one of those markets on Grant Street, expressly to please Irene, and for a long time had observed the white fish-balls, the yellow scallops, the tentacle-crowned carrot-colored balloons of marinated octopi (how to characterize those in a details description report?), the pouting-lipped carp so fresh they still jumped in the balance pans, the black and white X-patterns of cod-skinned provender, the reeking raw conches on their beds of dripping ice — and immediately had become apprehensive of doing the wrong thing, of buying something that was no good, or cooking it wrongly so that it would taste foul not only to him and to his unpleasantly outspoken brother but also to Irene — and, after all, nothing tastes as bad as bad seafood. So, in the end, like many another politician, he’d fallen back upon mediocrity, and satisfied no one, either. Given his occupation, we can hardly accuse him of following always the pattern of safe thinking — although, indeed, what else should we have expected Tyler to do while walking a dangerous path, but to tread cautiously? As it happened, his undistinguished culinary efforts had been effective far beyond his imaginings; for Irene, seeing the dull red flush upon his neck and face when John insulted the chicken’s flavor and presentation, had immediately understood to what extent their awkward host had labored to the limit of his abilities, and pitied him — a pity no less sincere for her laughter on the drive home, when her husband apostrophized Henry’s dinner in picturesquely emphatic terms. Of course Tyler never knew of her feelings, not daring to raise a subject as potentially odorous as golden-red fish blood curdling on day-old ice; so after washing the dishes he drove out to the ocean, stood upon the sand, and indulged in feeling sorry for himself. He pretended that she was standing in the wave-shallows, that she smiled at him and (the goal of many a pervert) understood him. And yet, while the continuation of Irene’s heartbeat might not be an indispensable precondition to such fantasies, her death, precisely by universalizing her absence — he could not merely pretend that he wouldn’t see her in his apartment anymore; he’d never see her anywhere, never, never! — thereby legitimated his playing the game in any spot that he chose. All San Francisco belonged to her now, and Sacramento, too — and Los Angeles, of course, especially Forest Lawn… But not just Forest Lawn. Thus the magical energy of that spot began to decay.

He awoke with the taste of Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

They were underneath the Stockton tunnel that night, Smooth had said. He took Tyler down the dripping passageway to where the tall man waited, and then there was a room where a woman’s naked straining back pulsed, the vertebrae alien eruptions held in by frantic fingers.

Hello, Sapphire, he said.

L-l-luh… gurgled that pale masklike face.

In the corner, he saw long arms, long legs scrabbling.

Like these visitor fees, a toothless old transvestite was saying. The Seville where I stay, that place hits up my tricks for ten bucks every time. Not five bucks, but ten bucks. And I don’t really care, Maj, ’cause it’s out of the trick’s pocket, not mine, you know? I’m making money and they’re making money. But the other day I brought my girlfriend in, and they wanted to charge her a visitor fee. So I went ballistic. I said: She’s a friend, not a date, and I’m not making any money off her, and what you’re doing is illegal, so if you want to call the cops you can but if I go to jail then you’re going to jail with me.

Then what?

Then they said, okay, forget it.

Okay, said the Queen. So you don’t really have a problem.

But it’s not right, Maj! They shouldn’t be trying to—

All rightie. What hotel you say it was?

The Seville.

Oh, that place. Can you remember this, Justin?

Yeah, said the tall man.

Okay, Libby. We’ll take care of it. Now run along, sweetheart. Queen’s got other things to do.

The Queen slipped her arm around Smooth and whispered something in his ear. Smooth opened his mouth wide until his tongue and palate became bulging cushions of mirth.

Oh, cut the crap, Smooth, the Queen laughed. Henry, the things he says about you and me. Your ears should be burning.

Seeing a familiar blonde and sullen face behind her shoulder, Tyler said with a wink: Well, maybe they are. I bet you said I was a misogynist, didn’t you, Smooth? That’s what Domino always says.

Who the fuck are you? said Domino. I never saw you before in my life, cocksucker, so where do you get off using my name?

Honk three times whenever I need you, Tyler said. Just like in the fairy tale. Oh, no, it was four times, wasn’t it? And you have a motorcycle scar on your leg.

All right, Henry, the Queen said. What’s the point?

The point is that I paid her good money to bring me to you and she took my money and said she didn’t know anything. I saw her watching me, too. Was that your policy at the time, Maj?

Oh, now they got you callin’ me Maj, too, said the Queen. That’s nice.

I don’t even remember you, Domino said. But it sounds like you were one of my johns. And it sounds like you were a misogynist, all right. And I just did as I was told. And what’s more, if I ripped you off, you just take your place in line before you complain about it. Anyone who would pay to have sex with a woman who has no options deserves to get ripped off. What’d I do, steal your watch or something? No, you’re wearing a watch…

Now, Domino, that’s no way to do business, said the Queen. Maybe I was raised different. Some of you people just don’t show no respect, and that’s no way to run a business. ’Cause that’s what we’re out here doing, Domino, and I’m talkin’ to you. People wanna be nice to you, you wanna give ’em the same courtesy back.

Queen tells it like it is, said the tall man.

Aw, go to hell, Maj.

All right, Domino. We’ll take this up later. Why don’t you go someplace else to be nasty? Now, Henry, excuse me, but it’s been a long night so far and lookin’ like it’s just gonna get longer and longer. What can I do for you?

Oh, I just kind of came by.

That’s nice.

What kind of pudding is in here? whispered Smooth, patting the Queen’s breast.

Plum. Plum pudding, child.

What kind is in here? asked Smooth, reaching between her legs.

Coconut.

Are you my Ocean Queen or my Chocolate Queen?

Both.

Now he’s jealous, laughed Smooth. Tell me, Ocean Chocolate Queen, is Henry jealous of us or not?

That would be private and confidential, said the Queen.

Tyler stared at her, somehow hypnotized by her sagging, used-up face.

Here’s my business card, said Tyler.

Thank you, said the Queen. Oh, you gave me two.

So I did, he said.

He took the extra one back, not touching it where she had touched it, and returned it to the little metal box in his shirt pocket.

Why don’t you keep ’em in your wallet? asked the Queen.

The condoms leak on them, said Tyler, and the Queen chuckled and shook her head.

When he got home he gloved himself in latex, opened the box, laid the card down on his glass slab. He had used the business card trick several times. The cards were imprinted on lightweight plastic sheets — a special order which had cost him an extra ten dollars. This nonabsorbent surface was an almost ideal base for latent fingerprints. Whirling the fingerprint brush between his hands as he pressed down on it so that the bristles fanned out into a configuration not unlike those at car washes, he worked it into soft readiness. Then with a plastic spoon freshly washed in rubbing alcohol and rubbed dry he sprinkled a pinch of fingerprint powder onto the business card — not too much, because that would have darkened the print excessively. Then, holding his breath, he caressed the brush across the card in a series of light passes, and brought to light the Queen’s finger-whorls, alternating white and black, like the wood-grain of German expressionist block prints. Now he could work more finely, and traced his gentle brush along her ridge-tracks, bringing his face down near the places she had touched and slowly allowing air to issue from between his lips, purging the unneeded fingerprint powder. Next for the fingerprint tape. Good cops needed only five or six inches, but he allowed himself eight, tacking down one end to the glass slab and then pressing his thumb along the rest of the tape until it lay flat and firm upon the first sharp print. He recognized his own prints (central pocket loop) and didn’t tape them over. Here was another whorl print, so he taped that. Then he reversed the card and powdered it. There were again the recognizable whorl prints, these somewhat smudged from contact with the adjacent business card, but he taped those anyway. Then he dropped the card into a plastic bag.

He called up a detective he knew, but the detective had been transferred or quit, as it seemed.

This is Henry Tyler, he said to the detective’s replacement. Who’s this? Let me see… — He snapped his fingers. — You must be Detective Collins. Didn’t we meet at the policeman’s ball last year?

You have a good memory, said the woman with her trademark chirpiness. He remembered her as a trademark passive-aggressive bitch. — Now, Mr. Tyler, I’m very busy, and the whole office is swamped. What do you need?

Gosh, that’s funny, said Tyler in wonderment. I’m swamped, too. Fancy that!

I’m sure you are, said Dectective Collins, the angry edge already in her voice.

I was wondering if you could run a check on a set of latents for me, said Tyler. That would really be helping me out.

Does this have anything to do with our jurisdiction, Henry? asked Detective Collins with bitter alertness.

No, it would just be a tremendous favor to me.

Well, Mr. Tyler, as I just explained to you, we’re quite swamped around here. We’re in the midst of a major investigation.

Yeah, I get that, but—

Well, sir, it’s not going to happen, the woman said, irritation in her voice. I don’t even come in until ten o’clock, and I work until seven or eight.

You’re the best, Detective Collins, said Tyler cheerily. I certainly understand your situation, yes siree. Detective Collins, I want you to know that I am your slave.

Sighing, he unpeeled the tape and wrapped it around another business card. Then he got the magnifying glass and looked at the index fingerprint to get the secondary code. A ridge count of nine: inner loop, then. Now for the sub-secondary. He didn’t have both thumbs, so he couldn’t get the major division. He counted ridges on the thumb print, to get a partial key, then computed the second sub-secondary.

The phone rang.

She knew what you’re doing, said Smooth. Our Queen’s no fool.

Tyler grimaced.

Have you got a match yet?

Detective Collins was not disposed, said Tyler drily.

Oh, she’s a piece of work, said Smooth. She doesn’t like pedophiles, either. Let me give you another number. This is Detective Roy Gardner. No “i” after the “d.” You can mention my name.

You’re an amateur, said Detective Gardner, inspecting Tyler’s tentative alphanumeric fractions. Well, you got the whorl group right. Secondary and sub-secondary correct. All right. Leave this with me and call me tomorrow.

No match, said Gardner happily on the following day. She’s not in our files. She’s not in the FBI files, either.

What’s your name again? said the tall man.

You know my name, said Tyler.

What’s your name? said the tall man.

Henry.

I don’t want no trouble, said the tall man. You wait here and I’ll see if she want to talk with you.

Tyler scratched his chin and said: While we’re at it, Justin, what’s your name?

Aren’t you the wiseass.

Alone now, Tyler sat in that world-famed rendezvous, the Wonderbar, and beside him sat his fears.

The tall man returned and said: Not today. We all got too much shit goin’ on today to show you any heart…

That night Tyler was sad, and Smooth dreamed that his niece Darcy was a small child again, and that it was Christmas and he had given her a doll which resembled her. Suddenly he saw that Darcy had crawled into the fireplace and was silently convulsing and burning on the coals. He rushed up, removed the screen, and reached in with his bare hands to save her. His arms burst into flames. When he pulled her out, he found that it was not the real Darcy at all, but only the Darcy-like doll, which Darcy had rejected and thrown into the fire.

This is the heart of it, the scared woman who does not want to go alone to the man any longer, because when she does, when she takes off her baggy dress, displaying to him rancid breasts each almost as big as his head, or no breasts, or mammectomized scar tissue taped over with old tennis balls to give her the right curves; when, vending her flesh, she stands or squats waiting, congealing the air firstly with her greasy cheesey stench of unwashed feet confined in week-old socks, secondly with her perfume of leotards and panties also a week old, crusted with semen and urine, brown-greased with the filth of alleys; thirdly with the odor of her dress also worn for a week, emblazoned with beer-spills and cigarette-ash and salted with the smelly sweat of sex, dread, fever, addiction — when she goes to the man, and is accepted by him, when all these stinking skins of hers have come off (either quickly, to get it over with, or slowly like a big truck pulling into a weigh station because she is tired), when she nakedly presents her soul’s ageing soul, exhaling from every pore physical and ectoplasmic her fourth and supreme smell which makes eyes water more than any queen of red onions — rotten waxy smell from between her breasts, I said, bloody pissy shitty smell from between her legs, sweat-smell and underarm-smell, all blended into her halo, generalized sweetish smell of unwashed flesh; when she hunkers painfully down with her customer on a bed or a floor or in an alley, then she expects her own death. Her smell is enough to keep him from knowing the heart of her, and the heart of her is not the heart of it. The heart of it is that she is scared. She is scared like the Ellis Street Korean woman in the white halter-top who charged twenty for a blow job or sixty for an hour of converse with her incredibly tight and dry vagina, moaning with pain as her clients fucked her (unless, of course, she could take the sixty and run); she’d been raped by a white guy two weeks before and then dropped off half naked in the street; she said it didn’t hurt in her cunt as much as it had hurt in her heart; for a year she had been carrying pepper spray which another white guy, a nice one, had bought for her, but she didn’t dare to use it when some big tall black gangster in the Tenderloin mugged her, which happened almost every week; gimme your dough, bitch! the tall man would command, and she’d obey. (His name was Justin. He’d not yet joined the Queen.) And every one of those other semi-clean or rotten-crotched women is scared. Each one walks in fear, waits alone — please, she does not want to go alone! Read from her list of if-onlys (which of course includes more important wishes connected with money, drugs and sleep): She needs a friend to go with her. She needs someone to watch her. Maybe she has a sweet young black boyfriend with rasta dreadlocks who if he could look up from the video games at the liquor store might find out where the man is taking her. Maybe she has a business type boyfriend, older, wiser, crueler or not, who talks with her there on the sidewalk in a low and angry voice. Their guardianship is not enough. The sweet young boyfriend, whom she doesn’t make wear a rubber, couldn’t accompany her even if he felt willing, because that would scare off the trick, and even were the trick one of those happy sloppy middle-aged exhibitionists who’d let her boyfriend in while he did her, she still wouldn’t want the boyfriend to see her naked with another man; she’d have to yell at him: Hey! Stop watching or I’m gonna beat you up again tonight! — The older business boyfriend would definitely scare off the trick. She’s alone. She waits for money or death. The heart of it is the fear, because she knows that sooner or later she will get raped, gaffled, and sodomized again and the last time a man did that to her it really hurt; she had to go to the hospital to shit blood for weeks and it permanently messed up her insides. Sooner or later she’ll get AIDS or she’ll get put away by the cops again or she’ll end up inside separate plastic bags in widely spaced dumpsters. In short, she needs the Queen.

A trick went up the stairs of the Odin Hotel with Lily; and the manager, after having buzzed them into the dark green moldy stinking lobby, slammed the grating behind them and then advanced on Lily, snarling: Bitch, you gotta pay your fuckin’ rent, bitch!

Don’t you call me a bitch!

You don’t interrupt me in front of my Mom, bitch! he cried, and then the trick saw the tiny creature which cowered in the corner — evidently the manager’s mother, although the trick would not have imagined that the manager could have had a mother.

Lily took the trick’s hand and started to lead him to her room when the manager forcibly broke their grip, shook Lily’s shoulder and shouted: Get behind me and shut up, bitch! Don’t you ever walk in front of me!

He scared her. He tried to hurt her. She fled, and joined the Queen…

The question of the Queen’s origin, and related questions such as: Was she the only one, or do the unsubdued powers of old Canaan continually form new Queens for the benefit of this world’s outcasts? and then all the unrelated but predictable questions of divinity students, such as: Did blood or celestial ichor flow in her veins? all lack depth and force. We need only know that she was beseeched, and she came. There were no omens of her coming, although retrospective omens are easily invented by those who wish to make life less mysterious than it is, which is why many of the beseechers, Strawberry in particular, would later tell the most extravagant tales. (Extravagance, by the way, is really a form of simplicity. Consider, for example, the magic four-digit Department of Motor Vehicles access number which allows a private eye to read his target’s address and personal description — how wonderful it all is! But the DMV, staffed in part by corrupt incompetents, presents to the world an unedifyingly error-ridden database. If you ask Henry Tyler how he found the Queen, he might say: Well, Dan Smooth helped me, but I matched her social with the DMV database. — And yet we know that she had no social security number. She didn’t exist. Extravagance, simplicity!) Strawberry insisted to the end that a full year before ever being crowned, the Queen appeared down on Second and Mission in front of the old Van Heusen furniture store and at that moment Strawberry felt a strange and thrilling feeling. Could the real truth have been that, wearied almost to death with the dark stale silence of her life, which never thrilled her anymore even when the needle went in, she needed to imagine some transcendent joy at sufficient remove from her that it could not be destroyed by examination? Or maybe the Queen had actually descended into reality before Strawberry’s eyes. Trying to harvest literalness from Strawberry’s myth-fields, I fear, is as exhausting as trying to compare the hard, brilliant comebacks of the Tenderloin girls with the dumb stench of their Capp Street sisters such as Sunflower whose soul had long since closed down for routine business like a fire department on a Sunday afternoon and who arguably never remembered or even perceived her Queen at all. That other beseecher, Sweetpea, who offered the world a whole museum of teardrop tattoos on her forehead, and later insisted that she’d been ready from the very first to do anything on the Queen’s behalf, actually claimed at the time in question that “the girls” could never get together because they were all on drugs and their minds were clouded, that if any Queen asked them to unite with her for mutual protection they’d just laugh. For that matter, Sweetpea herself laughed, and her laugh was more bitter than a flash of winter lightning. Oh, but to hear her tell it! — Soon’s I saw that dear little bitch, I knew, she told Dan Smooth. I knew she was my bitch an’ I was her bitch, forever and ever and ever. — Later, during the reign of Domino, she altered that story considerably.

No, there couldn’t never be a Queen here in the Mission! Chocolate insisted. Maybe in the Tenderloin, because those girls are more high class than us. But not here. Well, actually, since we’re so bad off, maybe we need a Queen more here.

When she said these words to Strawberry, she was not postulating, only playing, and her eyes resembled the grinningly cruel white-set windows of Alcatraz.

But Strawberry, faithful to postulates and to material possibilities, quietly replied: You saying you want to be the Queen?

No, I don’t have means to support the other girls, Chocolate said, condescending to acknowledge that faith because patience and politeness were her profession. — You think if I had means I’d be out here doing this? I worked in a shipyard out in San Diego before this, and then I was a house painter in Portland, Oregon. This is the only I guess you’d call female job I’ve ever had.

You ever get lonely out there? Strawberry asked.

Hell, yeah. Don’t we all?

You want somebody to take care of you?

Sure. But I don’t know any sugar daddies. Who the fuck’s gonna take care of me?

Chocolate, don’t you have family?

Oh, family. Gimme a break!

Well?

I got brothers. They’re the biggest bunch of crooks, theieves, and headaches this side of the earth. And becase of what I do, they don’t know me. Well, I can see that, but ’cause I do what I do, I’ve supported their drug habits; I’ve given them a place to stay when their women kicked them out.

Chocolate, do you want family?

Then in sentences of purest oxygen, which surpassed those of any fat lawyer whispering sweetly into a shackled felon’s ear, Strawberry told her about the Queen, about how if you came in after a long night on the street and hadn’t been able to score any dates, the Queen would front you your drugs until you made good; she’d give you a place to stay, too…

Sounds like a pimp, said Chocolate irritably.

No, a pimp keeps all your money. The Queen’s not like that. She just takes ten percent, like insurance, to share with the girls that need it. She does it out of love.

Bullshit.

I’m telling you true, baby.

Then the other pimps are gonna run her out, unless she maybe stays in some warehouse south of Market…

Chocolate, what would you do if a lady said she was the Queen and offered to take care of you?

Tell her to kiss my ass and fuck herself.

At the same time, honey?

Oh, go to hell, said the black woman, her eyes lidding just like the automatic plastic window slowly sliding back down over the keypad of a bank machine after a transaction.

So much for Chocolate, who soon would love her Queen with an almost bestial tenderness. Who knows where the bright light truly comes from, and who can foresee the whirlwind? Not even the crazy whore. And Tyler, wandering near home on a dismal Sunday morning, or eating breakfast in some sad diner, with Ocean Beach seen through saltblasted windows, likewise understood less than we might imagine; his lust for logic seduced him into retrospective explanations as sterile as those detail description sheets of his profession, which can hardly begin to categorize the world bright, blue, green, and blurred, the world with its many suns of sparkling cars flashing like Phaëthon’s chariot down the track — hardly that, let alone the old, old Queen in her otherwordly glory.

Domino’s induction into the ranks of the Queen’s women was, as may well be imagined, pregnant with difficulties for all concerned. The blonde began as one of those solitary runaways unabsorbed by the crowd at Golden Gate Park; she did not want to be absorbed. Around her swirled the street people with their feuds, hugs, dogs and bicycles. She remained aloof. Tattooed backpacker boys pestered her, and the eyebrow-pierced girls who sat on their duffel bags on the sidewalk tried to befriend her, but Domino remained too honestly and incorruptibly angry to join any crowd (even though inside the runaway still dwelt the little girl who had read a lot of romances and loved talking about conspiracy). When her new profession became known, one of her many enemies wrote on the wall DOMINO SUCKS — LUV SPREADS GERMS but Domino, her eyes stinging with hot tears, merely stood in front of this monument to herself when she waved at cars. A week or two later someone else’s enemy wrote MIKEY IS A TAR BABY on the same spot, and then the antagonism of the world, like its sympathy, quickly faded, leaving Domino alone, which is to say bitterly emancipated, like the tall man with his obscene war-cries against all citizens as he called them, all greengrocers, steadyjobbers, bourgeois taxpayers. “Dating” the longbearded old white men and the blacks in their wool caps of all seasons, and every now and then getting paid to do what she loved with two scowling lesbians in the hardware store, she strode proudly up and down the street in her new jean jacket, panhandling couples in gold-tinted mirror sunglasses and later screaming at them if they ever dared to say: I helped you, she kept her righteousness, and yet life grew worse and worse until after a stint of lap dancing and some cell time in San Bruno, she became just another kid in a dirty hooded jacket sitting on the sidewalk with her backpack on, panhandling and giving blow jobs; then she got another exotic dancing job, from which she was quickly fired; then for a while she became the greenhaired girl whose sign lied:

Look at her, said Strawberry. See her big black boyfriend standing right behind her? Not that I’m prejudiced. My main man is Justin. I suck black cock every night, so you don’t need to look at me like that. But when a big black man like that stands behind a hooker, well, sometimes the hooker’s in trouble. You know what they do? The boyfriend hides under the bed. Then while the girl’s taking care of the guy, the boyfriend’s goin’ through his pants, checkin’ out the wallet. That’s how a lot of girls end up dead. It’s like, damn, it’s like, get a grip, girl.

The Queen said: Domino, it don’t matter if you have a hundred pimps behind you. Keep your morals. Keep your scruples.

Let go of me, the pimp said very quietly. His eyes were as yellow as the sign for the Broadway Manor Motel.

You think this is funny, don’t you? said the Queen.

I’m gonna get you, the pimp said.

Raising her head high on her slender neck, the Queen gazed wide-eyed into his face with a small smile and said: Why? Haven’t I treated you right? Fuck this. Get up on your feet, pig.

You want me to ex him? said the tall man. This nigger’s an asshole. I’d love to ex this nigger out.

Knock out one of his teeth first, the Queen said. Just one.

What the fuck! screamed the pimp. In spite of Strawberry’s characterization, he was actually a slender little man, vicious and alert like a snake.

You really want me to smack him in his teeth, huh?

You wanna lose teeth or you wanna be a good little boy? said the Queen. Justin, don’t take his tooth out just yet. Looks like he’s fixin’ to say something.

I know you, bitch! the pimp yelled. I’m gonna do for you!

All rightie, said the Queen.

This is bullshit!

It is that. I know that, said Domino ecstatically, mincing in with a cigarette, shaking the match with her wrist back and forth so graceful, always kneeling.

Sweetie, be cool now, okay? said the Queen. Lemme speak with this gentleman.

Domino sank slowly down, whispering to herself.

Sapphire, go an’ hug her, said the Queen. Go an’ give Domino a big kiss. Don’t be afraid. Go now.

This is between you an’ me now, bitch, the pimp said.

Excuse me, said the Queen. You talkin’ to me?

I’m gonna be on your black ass. I’m gonna hunt you down. I’m gonna get you.

He’s a nasty one, said Strawberry. Justin, you oughta just ex him.

I don’ wanna be too talky now, the Queen mused aloud. We put him out on a crucifix, okay, in the middle of Ellis. Really just take him to the prom. This is out of our area.

That’s rich, laughed the tall man, twisting the cord another turn tighter. The pimp began to cough.

Yes, said the Queen, looking down, smoking, shaking, moving. Feels like your eyes gonna pop out, don’t it, mister? Feels like that blood’s just gonna explode right inside your ugly old head, now, don’t it? Well, you know what? It could happen.

Burn his eyes out! screamed Domino. He raped me! He addicted me!

I dunno — ssssh! said the Queen.

The pimp had begun to strangle now, and that was what Domino saw in her mind later whenever she thought about her sister’s crime. He was snarling, purring, and choking all it once. It was horrible.

There’s a lot of things I can do to him, the Queen said. But really what I wanna do is scare him. What you think, Justin? Should we put out one of his eyes? Or the tooth? Where should we start? How can we get him to listen?

Shit, why you askin’ me? Just make up your goddamned mind. I’m sick of this motherfucker.

Get out, said the Queen. Get out and never come back.

The tall man let go. The pimp got out.

Now, dearie, said the Queen. You wanna stay or you wanna go? Whatever you want, that’s cool here with us. You wanna talk with Strawberry or…?

Are you that out of whack? Domino screamed. Are you that ignorant? Haven’t you figured out that the more you help these bitches the more you’ll just be encouraging them to make some dumb illusion and crawl inside it until it’s too late while you go about your own cruel life refusing to do the one thing that they long to have you do?

And what would that be? said the Queen, faintly smiling.

The blonde burst into tears.

Okay, honeypie, said the Queen. All rightie. Never mind. You can stay…

There wasn’t a month before I come in here I wasn’t beatin’ up somebody, said Chocolate soothingly. Don’t even know what the heck I was doin’ it for. You wanna stay? Why don’t you stay?

Sobbing, Domino nodded

But later, when they were alone, the tall man said to the Queen: I don’t like her. Lemme check her out.

Papa, comprehending, sentient, and somehow tame, was still handsome. His bushy eyebrows were what had helped him accumulate the woman-memories which now protected his back. He owned the Liberty Bar on Eddy Street. There was something about him which struck the tall man as gently naked, some secret part of him whose inability to hide itself provoked tenderness, as when a woman’s T-shirt rides up her back when she bends over her pool cue. — Well, I’m a new man! a drunk was telling him. A new man, I said! He took my wife, my money, and my girlfriend.

Papa nodded sadly.

Can’t you just talk to her? the drunk pleaded.

I don’t want to get involved, said Papa.

Can’t you all at least check to see if she…

No, no, I gotta take her side, Papa said. I’ve known her longer than I’ve known you. I can’t get involved.

Papa, I swear to God, if you don’t talk to her I’m going to kill myself tonight.

All right, son, I’ll talk to her. Come back tomorrow.

Weary blue, those eyes of Papa’s, innocent in a way that could never be made knowing; sentient, I said, but no freer for that, no freedom like that of a bad moral actor…

What can I do for you? he said to the tall man.

You know a blonde bitch named Domino?

Oh, don’t tell me.

You know her? said the tall man, his words greasy, cool and inimical, like the white-painted rivets on the tunnel wall by the Greyhound station. Of course he knew already that Papa knew her. He knew quite a bit about other souls’ attachments and alliances. And what he knew about Papa, that very tenderness-provoking part of him, why, that was what excited the tall man’s contempt.

Sure I know her. She used to go by Judith. Then she was Sylvia. She doesn’t come around here much anymore.

Another shot, please, said the tall man.

Still no ice?

No.

Two and a quarter.

Here’s two.

Two and a quarter.

The tall man slid his sunglasses up his smooth brown skull and said: You tryin’ to rip me off?

I don’t care how big and black you are, Papa said. Anyway, aren’t you asking me for a favor? You want information or not? You owe me a quarter.

Matter of fact, Queen pays two dollars in here.

You want to hear about Domino or not?

Go ahead.

Thank you. Now you don’t owe me a quarter anymore.

Yeah, buy yourself a Cadillac.

All right. Well, Judith was a good friend of the owner. On SSI*, you know, like all those girls. And every month she’d run up a tab with me, you know: Papa, gimme a beer; I’ll pay you when my check comes; this is all I have right now. — She’s a girl, you know, so what can you do?

Break her jaw’s what I would do.

And every month she did it like this. Every goddamned month. And one month when she owed me four hundred dollars she didn’t come back.

Bitch really screwed it to you, huh? Papa, you’re too much. You got a fuckin’ bleedin’ heart.

Sometimes I see her on the street but she just sticks out her tongue at me. Well, that’s life. We never know what’s going to happen, much less why. Even your best friend can lie. Even your best friend can cheat. — Look, Papa went on, showing the tall man a Styrofoam cup which had been kissed by lipstick, but the tall man rose without finishing his drink and went back to the Queen to report that Domino was a cheat, a thief and a liar.

That don’t make no difference, said the Queen. Justin, you gotta try an’ care for her, too…

Even those who hated Domino admitted to respecting and even to feeling awed by her crazy violence, which in the street world meant bravery, honor, worthiness. Those who lived with her were haunted by her; her soul oppressed theirs with its weight and bitter-reeking shadows, and yet they also took pride in her. In her time she’d smashed furniture and heads. It was best to avoid her wherever possible; second best to give her whatever she wanted. Domino herself sensed the limitlessness of her own acts. Deep inside her skull, she hunched and squatted, dull-eyed, scared runaway whose only hope lay in setting her presence alight to give this planet of enemies pause; they said that Domino had a “rep,” that she had “heart.” By this they really meant that Domino was dangerous. The whore from Albuquerque who’d tried to gaffle her out of a dime bag of weed, where was she now? Domino had broken a lamp over her head. And Akoub the Muslim pimp, who’d raped her, wasn’t it Domino who’d set on fire not his hotel room, which proved too difficult to reach, but the entire hotel itself? No matter that what had actually happened was that Domino had raged into the lobby with a can of gasoline which she’d begun pouring on the lobby carpet while everybody screamed and ran and then the blonde pulled a book of safety matches out of her bra, struck one and it didn’t light, struck a second which also failed her, swore, glared fiery-eyed in all directions, and fled. And the night that a man in a fancy car insulted her, hadn’t it been Domino who’d thrown one of her high heels right through his windshield? No matter that the high heel had really been a hunk of brick; indeed, wasn’t brick more ferocious still, if less expressive, less stylish? Everything she did got magnified. She had no pity and showed no fear. She was magnificent. She was as much a part of the other night people as their own tears. Cursing and scrutinizing her, they stood aside to let her follow her own path. They said: Domino went that way. They said: Watch out for Domino. They said: That Domino is one coldhearted bitch.

And Dan Smooth, what magic did the Queen work, to tame him on their first meeting?

I want eyes as blue as ocean water, he’d whispered. I want to drink the sea and be young again, like a… like a dancing little ocean flower…

Are you my little boy? said the Queen, instantly apprehending what he needed. Oh me oh my, Danny, you’re my little honeychild.

After that, Smooth always loved her.

And the tall man, where he came from nobody knew. It was rumored that he’d once been the Queen’s lover, but another tale went that he’d been her pimp until she got her power and converted him into pilgrim, worshiper, and server. What had he been? Even he himself hardly recollected now. His memories of himself scarcely resembled anything which he could recognize, and he didn’t want to remember things anyhow. (Perhaps he’d been one of ever so many black men who sat on the sidewalk glaring into space.) Sentry sleeper before the tent of a prophetess, he wandered a desert partly of his own making, sometimes gaming and smiling, sometimes repelling jackal conspiracies. He leaned and meditated. He confirmed himself with his own courage. He almost never lied. He spoke or he didn’t speak. He deflected, threatened, raved, or again confirmed. To the Queen he was her wall, her flashlight, her pistol, her binoculars. He hunted the Tenderloin streets to cop the cheapest weed, the best uncut china white, the raciest speed, the highest grade ice, the purest white girl so delicious in the crack pipe, the most vicious angel dust. He waited and lived on, a fabulous, enigmatic figure who kept his own counsel and the Queen’s, cipher by choice, half-man, superman, faithful searcher, merciless gleaner. Above them all he was as an iron roof.

The tale of Beatrice, of sweetnatured Beatrice who very rapidly chewed gum with her black black teeth as she swayed herself down the curbside of life, illustrates above all else that wherever Queen Destiny marches in her lethally imperial purple, free will must fall down naked and trembling in every grovelling ritual of hopelessly humiliating abasement suffered not merely by the bitter-comprehending brain alone, not only by the heart which would be proud, but even by the entrails, for free will, stripped bare, must squat down exposing its haunches, to be kissed, whipped, or raped as sparkling Queen Destiny may please. But an uncomprehending child such as Sapphire, or a religious prostitute such as Beatrice herself, may both submit to the purple one without harm, the former because where there exists only sensation without interpretation or memory there can be no permanent emotional wound, the latter because acceptance of rape may truly for sacred natures become willed sacrifice.

Beatrice was a fullbooded Mixteca from Oaxaca, in a village where beyond a fence made of scrap wood, the canyon continued down toward unknown places where they said that puppets well-made enough came to life and ran away from their makers, hiding amidst the lizards, vagabonds, and beautiful turquoise skeletons. Sometimes at night Beatrice heard a strange humming from that direction, and was afraid. In her house the ladders made A-shaped shadows on concrete. A toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste were wedged into the top of the doorframe. Beatrice’s family shared that toothbrush, because they were all one blood. Her Papa’s revolver lay on the concrete. He needed it to protect them. But most of the time he was gone, and the children were forbidden to touch it, so if any animated puppets had come to haunt them what could they have done? After Beatrice had gotten fat and given birth to her own child, she would have liked to inquire of her Papa regarding this point, but by then, as with most wisdom, the motive arrived too late for application. Besides, the puppets never came, so her Papa must have known what he was doing. Beatrice remembered when he used to play with her; now he worked so hard and came home worried and tired. As for her Mama, she’d died of jealousy two years ago, so nobody baked a cake for Beatrice’s name day anymore. But her Papa continued to love her; he always gave her a present on the Day of the Three Kings.

I think I get crazy staying here, doing practically nothing, she said to her friend Juanita.

Can you read and write? asked Juanita with a loving glance.

Can you?

I asked you first.

Somebody was teaching me, but I forgot. See, I don’t have such a good memory, Beatrice smilingly said.

Spades, picks, shovels, and empty bottles inhabited the dirt.

Well, then, you must try for special work, Juanita said, and Beatrice did not know what she meant.

Beatrice was not grey then and never imagined that she could be. Nor was her smile anything but white. Her black shiny hair parted itself on either side of her shiny face, which was made more vivid still by her ever-smiling teeth and the whites of her flashing eyes. She would have liked to wear black miniskirts with the slenderest shoulderstraps because she so often felt hot, but then her Papa, who’d beaten her only twice, would have knocked her teeth out. Fortunately he never suspected that she had any such desires because as her figure continued to ripen (she was fourteen), the girl took to attending church more and more, praying to the Virgin for happiness. Every time she got a few centavos, she’d go light a votive candle, and nobody ever asked what she prayed for. In the cornfield she was a hard and cheerful worker. Her skin became the color of caramelized sugar, and she dyed her hair two or three shades blonder than that.

Juanita was thinking. Beatrice waited. But because she could never wait very long, and because she wanted to make sure that Juanita thought the right things, she winked at her friend and said: You know what? I was gonna do the craziest thing in my life about a week ago. I was gonna go away from here.

Me too, said Juanita. I feel that way too sometimes. But my Papa would never let me.

My dad, he’s mean, too. Because my dad, always when he’s mean, he gets mad at me.

The chickens laughed hysterically.

Juanita leaned forward and whispered something into Beatrice’s ear, and Beatrice’s eyes widened and she laughed.

Well?

I would be very happy, said Beatrice, even though she was afraid.

Well then.

But, you know, I have a novio now, too, Juanita. And my father-in-law and mother-in-law, they order me. I like to do a lot of things, but they don’t let me. If I ask them, they say, you’re crazy. I don’t think they will let me go.

Even once a week? said Juanita.

If it’s once a week I think I could.

I saw you that time, when my sister-in-law got married. You were dancing! You embarrassed?

Red chickens and black chickens ran by in the sun, shaded under the planks of the roof.

I would be very happy, Beatrice said again.

Green trees and blue sky clothed her village. Her laundry bag hung beside her, red and purple and black. A brown spider crawled slowly up the wall. The village smelled like pigs and chickens.

Juanita was dead now, from a shameful disease.

Beatrice wanted to remain a good girl loved by the Virgin, so, continuing innocent of the urine-and-sweat smell of veneral disease clinics, she put the other girl’s proposals out of mind for a whole year, until the Virgin rewarded her in the person of her stepbrother Roberto (son of her Papa’s old novia), who sent her a registered letter all the way from Yucatan, informing her that if she were to ride the bus across Mexico to the grand hotel where he worked, she could earn big money cooking for the foreign tourists. Nobody at Beatrice’s house knew how to read, but the priest, who possessed power over all the churchbells, explained the letter to them and said: Girl, you must go. Roberto wants to do the good thing for you. — Her Papa wept, which made her surprised, ashamed, and pleased all at once. Then he said: Go with God. — And he gave her ten silver pesos. Her sister gave her an herb against witchcraft. And all her little brothers and sisters, who always used to pull her braids and break her toys, became very sad. Beatrice had never known that she was so important. As for her novio, Manuel, he grew very pale and wretched. He didn’t even dare to visit her Papa’s house to wish her farewell. He promised to wait for her for three years. Beatrice smiled at the deliciousness of another soul’s making promises to her. The two little Marias next door kissed her and said that they would pray for her. As for Juanita, she had been locked away by her Papa for going around with boys, so Beatrice, no matter how much she would have liked to learn more secrets and answers, was unable to tell her goodbye. Beatrice tried to be reasonable about this disappointment. Then her Papa made the sign of the cross over her and she went to Yucatan, but on the way she somehow lost the letter from Roberto with the name of the grand hotel where he was working, and consequently she never met him.

She was afraid, but the truth was that she had been even more fearful of living in Roberto’s house. What if new sister-in-law had disliked her? People say that sisters-in-law never agree except when somebody dies. So it was really for the best. She knew she could work in the fields somewhere, or maybe in an ice cream factory where she could eat all she wanted. Or she could become a dressmaker — why not? She knew what a pretty dress was! She wanted to make black sleeveless miniskirts and formal gowns of red velvet. Her greatest fear was that some bandits might fall upon her and rape her until she died, but she prayed to the Virgin until she heard the same humming which used to haunt her childhood back home in the canyon, and then she knew that the Virgin would protect her. The next day she got a job in a shop. The owner said that she was very honest. Then he put his hand on her ass. Beatrice smiled at him just as she had smiled at her novio: such things meant nothing. Men whistled when she walked down the street, and that was likewise without consequence; in fact, it made her feel good.

One hot day maybe six weeks after Easter, Beatrice was in Merida beneath the canopy in the Plaza de la Independencia, when a birdlike old man who sat sipping mango ice among the people in the army-green folding chairs beckoned. It was a Sunday (she remembered that because everybody was dressed for church); they were about to reenact the Mestizo Wedding. Beatrice, who was wearing new tight bluejeans and lipstick of the brightest red she could find, came and sat between the old gentleman and a woman whose arm-skin was blotched like buckwheat pancakes. Her acquaintance wore white from head to toe. His white cowboy hat cooled and shaded her. He failed in handsomeness but he achieved elegance. He asked her whether she lived unmarried, and she said yes. He asked where her Papa was and she said far away. She wanted to believe that this old man was her protector. She longed to feel proud. There she was, sitting like a real lady, recruited into those two facing armies of green chairs, one under the awning, the other against the pillared portico of the Municipal Palace! She was so happy that she couldn’t stop smiling. It was very close and crowded. Her knees engaged the buttocks of two children in the row ahead. Fat women in white blouses lifted up their babies to watch the trumpeter tune his brass proboscis. Bespectacled old widows stirred sweet slush-heaps with their straws. Ladies fanned one another with sandalwood fans from China. Out of kindness or by mistake a woman fanned Beatrice, who squealed: Thank you, señora, thank you! — A sweating vendor dressed in white lowered an immense basket of tan-colored snacks from his shoulder especially for Beatrice, while her new friend, the birdlike gentleman, bought her exactly what she wanted: a bag of salt-crisped corn! No one had ever treated her so kindly. Manuel, her novio back home, had been a very shy and dirty boy who couldn’t buy her anything. Beatrice felt prouder every second. She almost believed that wings would burst from her shoulders so that she’d rise up into the air on a surge of everyone’s applause. In the sunny street it was raining yellow butterflies.

Now, with trumpets and stridulating rattles, while the death-pale master of ceremonies stood under an arch of the Municipal Palace, expressionlessly smoking cigarettes, the children of Merida filed out and began to dance. After each dance the master of ceremonies strode into the light and shouted: Bravo! Bravissimo! Domingo, in Merida! Merida, Yucatan! Merida! until the band began to blare the next dance tune, and he bowed himself back into the shadows. Beatrice had never seen anything so grand. There came the dance when each boy balanced a bottle of beer on his head. Everybody applauded and Beatrice shrieked: Ay! She had fallen in love with all those dancing pairs of children in white, the boys wearing little white sombreros, as if they were the sons of her birdlike gentleman who now held her hand, the girls with yellow flowers in their hair and three stripes of floral embroidery down their long bleached dresses. Each pair wore red neckerchiefs, which on that day appeared to her most eminently remarkable.

Beatrice thought that she understood the way that Merida girls danced with their hands behind their backs. She wanted to dance that way, too. They all danced in the Mayan way, in mincing little steps, scarcely moving their upper bodies. The Mixteca way, Beatrice’s way, was different, but on that Sunday afternoon a sensation of almost belligerent rapture overpowered her; she believed that she could do anything. Her only fear was that Roberto might find her. And now, in tones simultaneously awed and gleeful, the master of ceremonies cried: Our Queen of the Yucatan — sweet as a pastry, hot as a candle, bright as the sun! Beatrice longed to see this personage, but never did.

In the room where the old birdlike man took her, a room in a hotel once a colonial mansion which pretended to be Spanish, Beatrice lay naked in the four-poster bed with her legs spread while the old man mounted her, and, staring over his scrawny shoulders at the canopy which heaved on its posts in harmony with his thrusts, she decided that she wanted to be a dancer in a perfect white dress with three stripes of embroidered flowers. She was very happy. She wanted the skull-faced announcer to proclaim her as bright as the sun. On the radio she heard this song: I am the King, but I have no Queen.

Rather sweetly, the old man kissed her all over. Beatrice giggled. She remembered her youngest brother’s mouth ambling miscellaneously along the pale end of an ear of boiled corn.

The old man said: I wish to thank you. You have made me more happy than I have been since before my wife died, may she rest in peace.

He gave her fifty pesos. He said that she was sweeter than a Durango melon. He said he wanted to marry her because all his children had gone away. Beatrice blushed, feeling very rich and happy and appreciated. Her private parts were a little sore, but she didn’t mind. She never wanted to work in the fields again.

She went that evening to the ancient cathedral to pray to the Virgin for forgiveness in case she had sinned with the old man, and also to pray for assistance in becoming a dancer who would be admired by the entire world. She lit a candle and whispered: Maria, darling, I want to tell you that my Mama and my Papa, they know Mixteca dances from the different parts, and they teach their children. They teach me. The Mayan people here, I think maybe they went to school, but my people, the Mixteca people, they didn’t go to school. They can’t even write in Spanish. They do a lot of things, like the Virgin of the Snows… But please let me try, because I know I can dance as well as they. Please, Maria, darling. You’re my best friend. — This was how she prayed to the Virgin. And high above the altar, the Virgin contemplated her Son’s crown of thorns.

While the priest was speaking words which Beatrice could not understand, the Virgin wept white chains of rain down on all the red-tiled balconies of the city, making surf-convulsed seas upon them. Cold rain smashed away the stuffy heat. Thunder came closer, as sharp and loud as gunshots, and there was a sulphur smell. The drumming of roof-gutters filled the congregation’s ears. Not even those who understood could hear the priest any longer. They gazed out in pleasure and wonder. Rain vomited itself off terraces and drainpipes, frothing onto lower roofs.

Beatrice never slipped over her head the white dress with the three stripes of Mayan embroidery, but she became famous in a kindred fashion behind the sweaty fence-bars of the dancehall with all its men standing across the street from it looking; and the muffled bass of Henry Star and of Los Big Boys weighed down the rainy sweaty light. That was how the Virgin helped her. And every morning at eleven o’clock when she woke up, Beatrice would pray with a candle and a glass of water. She believed so much in her future that she never asked any questions. The men grinned because Beatrice was already dancing.

Very late at night, after the girl in the speckled cape had finished her act, shucking herself like an ear of corn as she stroked her long hair under red light, then Beatrice majestically strode onto the stage, the disco ball brightly burning, and began to dance faster and faster, suddenly raising her hands behind her head as she unhooked her bra, which she then raised above herself in a kind of offering, and the wings of her bra glowed green like a lunar moth, and it was mystic and beautiful and so religious.

Beatrice became the girl that everyone knew, the girl in the black tank top and black miniskirt and shiny black high heels, swinging arms with men as she went down the wet sidewalk. So she had her fame, but she was already getting plump. The Virgin told her that she had to make new efforts. Her dancing changed. First it was graceful, then it was erotic, then lewd, and finally desperate — comically desperate, I should say, for they laughed at Beatrice now when she danced.

Later she got her son and her crown of thorns. Beatrice knew that every soul is put on earth to suffer pain, so she was prepared, and of course the Virgin comforted her, because up until the very day she met the Queen she continued to pray, either in the old cathedral or in her rented room with the candle and the water. The Virgin said in her humming voice that if Beatrice suffered greatly enough, then all the angels in heaven would be proud of her and would help her. In this life, God knows, we must all be patient.

The first thing that happened was when, drunk and high on cocaine, she went home with a man in a stolen car, an anxious and flashy man with dark eyes and a dark hat who promised to give her good money and even said he loved her, which very few men said to Beatrice anymore, but when he saw the police he began to drive faster and faster until he crashed into a bus. The Dark Saint took him then. As for Beatrice, her face was scarred forever. She had to get a day job in a skirt factory. Suddenly she longed for a husband. She remembered her novio back in Oaxaca, but she knew that it was too late and she was ashamed to go home. When she lost her job, she went back to the dancehall. After that, everybody started calling her “the old whore” even though her glistening peachy shoulders proved how young she still was. She continued to resist her destiny, imploring the sad-eyed Virgin in that ancient cathedral of white-weathered and rain-greened whitestone on cool humid evenings under the softly dripping trees where they knelt singing hymns, with wet palmtrees and mosses and large-lobed tropical leaves like seashells growing around them through the open archway. Kneeling people, rising life, rising breaths and prayers, falling rain, descending ironic grace, thus everything went round and round. Beatrice’s prayers rose clacking like long beads on a necklace, then came down like hailstones on her head. After a while she believed that that was how it was supposed to be. For money she masturbated men by the thousands, in just the same way that the old ladies sitting on the concrete floors of city markets slowly knead dough into immense balls, which they then lay upon masses of the same stuff, like God creating humanity from earth, like a woman growing a baby inside her from blood, fruit, and meat. Beatrice did this well. She fed upon the diseased sperm of thousands of men, drinking it down without complaint, transubstantiating it into sacred suffering. Whenever she could, she returned to the Plaza de la Independencia on Sundays to watch the dancers’ white suits and white dresses under white light, the Mayan couples facing one another on those harsh hot afternoons and in the brilliantly lit concrete nights, the ladies tapping their heels back and forth to the steps of La Chinita, their faces expressionlessly smiling, the gentlemen keeping or sometimes not keeping one white-sleeved arm behind themselves. At the dancehall, Beatrice now worked with the same expressionless smile.

One night two drunks whom she’d blown for twenty pesos apiece beat her and slashed her. Then, joined by two other men whom they’d met in their cantina, they raped her in a parking lot. Beatrice thought that she was going to die. That night she went out of her mind and she was glad that she did. In her whole life she never wanted to give any other human being such pain as those four men gave her. When she regained her senses, her first desire was to return home to Oaxaca, but she didn’t have any money. When she made money again, she was already ashamed again. She began to feel hot and tired all the time. Her breasts ached. How could she dance, feeling like that? What was there for her to do in this world? An old bruja who knew how to burn certain flowers to make wishes come true offered to help Beatrice, but she refused the woman because witchcraft is not righteous. She gave birth to a sickly-pale child whose tripas* hung out of his stomach. As soon as she saw him, she remembered the master of ceremonies who’d cried out: Our Queen of the Yucatan on that long ago Sunday, because his face likewise resembled a death’s head. She named him Manuel after her novio. He cried day and night and could not digest her milk. She took him to the doctor to sew up his insides but the doctor said that Beatrice didn’t have enough money. In the afternoons she brought Manuel to the dancehall. She had to keep him indoors so that he wouldn’t get his intestines dirty from the dust. — You make a hole, she whispered to herself, and you put rocks and water in the top, just like Mama and Papa showed you, and you get the branches of those special trees, it’s like a shower, and it’s like if you have a baby, two or three days, you need to have one, to get the good milk from your breasts, not the bad one. It’s like a medicine, to get the women well. To get energy… — She prayed to the Virgin. Then she put her feet up and drank beer on credit with the other whores, who raised their hands caressingly over the child.

Bad men and evil happenings now swarmed about her like colorless rainbows of water vomiting out of wide-throated roof-pipes. They swarmed about her like all the fishes in the sea, fishes finned or beaked, so finally she ran away from Merida with her child, whom for pity then she left with some nuns because his insides were too delicate for her life. All summer she travelled half an hour by bus every night to be with him, but by the Day of the Dead she felt too exhausted. She prayed to the Virgin unceasingly. She prayed when she was selling cakes in the street, when she was renting her pussy, when she was patching her shoes, when she was painfully dancing, trying to favor her abscessed leg, when she was defecating, when she was closing her handbag leaning up at the postal window nervously counting out centavos.

She dreamed of the master of ceremonies. She dreamed that he was waiting for her, sitting with a wrapped boxed cake in the sunny street. In her dreams she heard his cry: Our Queen of the Yucatan — sweet as a pastry, hot as a candle, bright as the sun!

She went to Mexicali because a truck driver gave her a ride there. One day she became very ill with a shameful disease even though she had douched with vinegar. In the hospital they were all rude except for one old whore who told her that if she could run away across the border and hide from the American police, then money would come to her like rushing water turning the desert green. The old whore said that in American California she’d make eight or nine dollars an hour, out of which she’d have to pay the foreman only a dollar an hour to keep quiet. Beatrice lit a candle and prayed. She was afraid to go anywhere now, not excited the way she had once been when she was an ignorant young girl who had hardly even been kissed. She dreamed that she’d gone to America and seen a devil with a face of brass. She woke up screaming. But she’d also heard from other women that three months of illegal sweatshop work in Los Angeles (her legs were becoming too swollen for her to pick peaches or tomatoes, and, besides, the Americans preferred men for that) would support her for an entire year, and she was getting tired of Mexicali because some liar said she’d picked his pocket and so they wouldn’t let her inside the bar anymore, compelling poor Beatrice to stand out in the street at night thrusting out her bosom at unaccompanied men. She felt so lonely that she cried. At least nobody envied her. She had nothing anybody wanted. One hot night a man came to rape her and she said to him: Why use force? I’m indifferent. If you want it, take it. Kill me; I don’t care. — And then the man went down on his knees before her in the street, just like that, and apologized. He was drunk; he was a regular in the pulqueria.

Beatrice gathered together four hundred pesos, a blanket, a dagger, and a box of powdered sugar. Everybody laughed at her and told her to leave the sugar behind but she wouldn’t. A man named Don Chucho took her across the border by night, in exchange for certain services. And then she was in America.

The first opportunity which the Virgin sent Beatrice was to work sewing baby clothes for an angry Korean lady who paid her four dollars an hour, with no breaks for lunch or even coffee. The Korean lady was always yelling at her. There were forty-five women in that place, and none of them had green cards. One morning the police came and she lost everything. But that very night, with the Virgin’s help, she escaped from a window of the bus which was bringing her back to Mexico. Then she felt very free and very afraid. When she was hungry, she stole oranges from the trees. Striving to find her way without doing wickedness or suffering too much pain, she rented herself to the outcast men who lived in cardboard boxes, and they guarded her and sometimes gave her wine. Her desire to stay in America spread through her bloodstream. Someday she would certainly return to Mexico, but only because she had been born there. She could not dance anymore. Perhaps she wished to remain in America simply because the police wished to take her away, and in her experience the police never did people any good. She whispered to the Virgin, not yet knowing that it was for almost the last time.

How did Beatrice come to San Francisco? I don’t know, but I am sure that the Virgin brought her. When she met the Queen at last, she closed her eyes but her heart felt as hot as Mexican light through varnished wooden Mexican blinds blinds drawn up as tight as they go for a Sunday afternoon lovemaking siesta which insistently admits wands of blinding brightness. Why? Because she had recognized that her Queen was the very same as that sad-eyed Virgin over the altar in that church in Merida.

Sometimes in one of the stinking dawns, the Queen saw tears oozing from Beatrice’s dreaming eyes. When the other whores asked her to give Beatrice some remedy, some comfort, she shook her head, saying: What’s gonna take away all her sorrows? Do you know? Let her sleep. Let her suffer in her dreams. Go make yourselves be happy! — When Beatrice woke up, she never remembered that she’d been sad in her sleep, and came running, longing to be close to the Queen’s old, old face.

The other whores said Maj. Beatrice said Mama.

Of all her whores, the Queen loved Beatrice best excepting Sapphire alone. She often said to the others: Beatrice ain’t like us. She’s Christian. She don’t bear that Mark of Cain. Beatrice, now, she’s our special angel.

We worship, we revere with what we have. Isn’t everything divine anyway? Just as in some Italian fishing town statues of the Blessed Virgin in their shrine-niches are framed by cockleshells, so in the Tenderloin I’ve seen crude drawings of the Queen framed by shards of broken glass.

The half-black girl with her blonde-dyed dreadlocks stood listlessly, pressing against the cool hotel window, her left cheek swollen and blistered and branded.

Got a cigarette, Maj? she said dully.

Martha, Martha, what happened to you?

I was talkin’ to a friend while we was layin’ on the floor and I rolled over against a hot iron.

Oh, shit, wept the Queen.

Why you always cryin’, Maj? And now I’m waiting for my uncle to come pick me up and take me to the hospital but I guess he has some things to do…

Uncle who?

Uh—

Hey, Domino! shouted the Queen. You been training this one? She be waitin’ on her old Uncle Crack!

Martha turned her weary back and said with effort: Hey, Strawberry, you got any smokes?

Just enough for my period, said Strawberry. Then she added gloatingly: And it’s nice greenbud, too.

Martha went out onto Turk Street and stood against the wall that said:

Well, the Queen had said at the very beginning, some of you will follow me and some won’t. The ones that won’t, I won’t give you no trouble if you don’t give me no trouble. — Most followed her, proving the lie of the pimps who looked at streetgirls and laughed: They don’t know nothing about unity, man. — Each one of them attempted to respect the Queen’s silence. She lay there with her hair up in a massive bun intermixed with black yarn, her head sunken on her breast, long reddish beads around her arms, and around her neck a string of beads which the whores had given her, beads of colored glass from broken bottles. Every night they went out under their Queen’s protective spell, every dawn returning to the Queen’s lair in hopes of salvation and rest and even pleasure. Soon it seemed that they had always lived that way, for why shouldn’t it be the case for them as well as others that God had made an oasis?

At four-thirty, suddenly the stream of bending knees, clicking high heels, straining sweaty throat-tendons began to increase, which is to say that it actually became a stream instead of a collection of episodes. Tired secretaries finishing the early shift, a few with shopping bags as well as briefcases (they must have gotten out even earlier, and run to a department store, a health food store or a record outlet — or had they done the deed at lunch hour?), were now reinforced by plump men with belt pouches, dependable beetle types. But as late as a quarter to five, the newspaper vendor was still basking against his kiosk, drumming his pallid fingers, resting his feet upon a plastic crate. Then the next wave of homegoers, more dense and urgent than the first, formed from everywhere, like scattered raindrops from the skyscrapers on high, joining together according to a single law even though each drop strove to be blind to all the others. They were all bipeds; their internal organs were similar, and they were going the same way. Yet they insisted on their uniquenesses and specificities. And in this I think they were correct even as they flowed together, some of them even running to join the mass, running down the clanking metalled stairs. But still the old newspaper vendor only grinned and gaped and wisely picked his fingernails. His hair was as blindingly white as the metal temples of his spectacles. He understood very well that this was just the beginning, that his time was not yet. Sour-breathed office workers descended, then came the first bigshot, a suit man, a necktie man. He was a man with a comfortable leather briefcase which exhaled the smell of mild nonconformity. I pegged him for either a lawyer or a high-priced psychiatrist (post-Freudian). Seeing him, the newspaper vendor got to his feet. He cleared his throat and began to cry out the headlines just as the next wave came upon him, a torrent as of glossy beetles. I was once one of these. I remember being tired, hoping for a seat on the streetcar, wanting to get home, dreading the effort of making dinner, knowing that the day was already gone because there was not much left in me, so I’d have to sleep early; maybe I’d read a page or two, or make a phone call; then I’d lie down “for a minute” and at seven in the morning the alarm would buzz in the harsh insect language which ruled me because I must now become a beetle again. Why must one be ruled? Because in the morning and at night, the financial district expands in all directions, following municipal routes. The intersection of Church and Duboce streets, for instance, which at other hours belongs to another neighborhood, suddenly becomes one of the financial district’s vacuum cleaner hoses, which sucks up busloads of beetles into its darkness. At night it becomes one of many gas-jets discharging sweating, burning beetle-atoms all over the city. For this is the entrance to the subterranean realm, whose walls are now graffiti’d much more than I remember them to have been when I myself was a reinsurance drone rushing anxiously toward the financial district every morning, hoping that my streetcar would not stall in the tunnel and make me late. I was a beetle, and how could I not be? If I were late, I would be in trouble. If the streetcar stopped, or if, already overloaded with beetles, it passed me by without opening its doors for me, I began to worry and seek my watch, calculating that if help, movement, came within seven minutes I still had a chance of not being late. I could not think of anything else. I was afraid to lose my job. The evening rush hour, even if still subjecting its participants to the laws of beetledom, was less harsh. Among the beetles I saw women wearing name tags and blood-red blazers, secretaries in black miniskirts, an ambiguous-status man in a loud tie, and they were tired; duties awaited them at home, but home was not work. If they lagged a little, or went twenty paces out of their way to buy a newspaper from the old vendor, they would not be burned for heretics. Now the five o’clock wave had struck, and its emerald dresses, its blowdry hair, and its neckties with diagonal grey stripes like subway tracks created a more formal impression. This wave took substance from the salaried workers. By five-thirty, business suits positively set the tone, and instead of beetles I spied many elegant benevolences chatting with the newspaper vendor, who, pop-up oracle, was explaining to them all the secrets of life, interspersed with horse-racing tips. (You want my tip? Don’t bet on the horses.) Meanwhile, of course, the rush went on, and among its foaming vectors I began to glimpse recurrent subspecies: executive secretaries in goggle-like Italian sunglasses, misfortunately ill-timed tourists trying to unfurl their maps, friends and lovers (some of these comprising the adulterers whom Tyler stalked) touching shoulders, office-gossipers telling secrets, glasses-polishers who vaguely smiled, their neckties themselves as wide as smiles, and, darting among them, the bicycle messengers who kept the world running. There they all were on that bright and slanting artery, Market Street, with its buses, streetcars, and museum-escapee trolleys red and green humming through the web of blue-grey tracks. And then, just as I noticed an elegant businessman in a white shirt and shiny shiny shoes who was smoking in time with the beeping of a bus, I realized that it was six o’clock and that the seashell roar of departing humanity had dwindled; the tide was running out. The newspaper vendor sat back down on his crate, silent now, his face as blank as the file cabinets behind the dark green windowpane of Olde Discount Stockbrokers.

John had not yet departed the office. What use for him to hurry home? What use had there ever been, indeed? The bitterness of returning to an empty place did not perhaps greatly exceed the prior bitterness of entering a loveless one. He had always worked late in any event. When Joy and all his colleagues left, it was as if a certain banked and gentle flame within him suddenly brightened, warming, almost gilding his solitude. Every task became facile — or so it seemed while the hours flashed unobservedly by. Meanwhile, neither insults nor sorrows wrung his heart. A vague recognition of Celia struggled up to the surface of his mind, but she never expected him until late, and then only if he telephoned first. Hating crowds, longing to be the nucleus of a well-ordered zone, he worked comfortably all through rush hour, with brass-locked dark attaché cases bobbing past his window. Cigar smoke blandly perfumed the street. Mr. Singer, that solitary old law-tycoon with bald head bent, had long since stalked toward the Muni stop. Mr. Rapp’s wife had picked him up just as Irene used to do for John. At seven, wanting to stretch his legs, John wandered down to look at the green quotation numbers jaggedly positioned, crawling leftward above the world in the open door of the Pacific Stock Exchange. Catching a blue glimpse of the security guard’s belly protruding from behind a pillar, he smiled scornfully, then retraced his steps past the lovely honeycomb-reflections of tawny skyscrapers in the polished bays of other giants. — Working late, Mr. Tyler! observed the doorman cheerily. John tried to smile at the man. He needed to review Brady’s documents on consolidated leverage. He also meant to phone Celia.

On Steiner and Jackson by the park, there rose a small yellow three-storey house the foliage of whose trees had been lovingly pruned into compact green balls like certain fireworks at the initial stage of the burst when the green dazzle (which appears so unwholesome by day and so eerie, even sinister by night) was at its maximum, having not yet converted its fuzzy edges into full-scale rays. This was the steep sunny windy place. This was Pacific Heights with its trembling dandelions and sidewalk moving sales. Celia lived here. On week days she was there almost infallibly by six-thirty every evening. Her business card offered her name and telephone extension in small black capitals beneath the name of the firm, which marched in immense gold letters across a zone of regal purple. The first time he saw it, John pitied her. She was, however, considered a competent broker. Her policies, which, like John’s literary efforts for Rapp and Singer, were scarcely meant to be read by human beings, nonetheless seemed to renew themselves on time, and to be neat and somehow easy, because most of Celia’s clients liked her. Her voice, friendly, yet modulated by the requirements of her impersonal epoch, could often be heard emanating from her cubicle in a steady telephone warble. No one had any real fault to find with Celia, as we have already seen from her personnel file, but at a quarter past five she was rising, wishing her colleagues goodnight, that trademark scarlet purse hanging from her left shoulder. At five-twenty she was waiting at the bus stop for the number 1 California. (Unlike Irene, who’d been at least in part a southern California girl, Celia did not drive everywhere.) Although she had never articulated her sentiments even to herself, she felt somewhere deep within her that whatever forces controlled her place of business did not regard her life or happiness to be of the slightest importance. They could, if they chose, demand that she relocate to Minneapolis, or they could close down her division at half a day’s notice. Her father treasured up several such experiences, and her brother seemed to lose his job every two or three years. Granted that neither her father nor her brother had anything to do with the insurance business, Celia nonetheless believed that all such disappointments were of a piece. To her, and perhaps to many others in her generation, it seemed that the future would be worse than the present, that “stability” was a fantasy, and therefore that the proper way to live was to work decently and inconspicuously, for good compensation, and, while not foregoing retirement funds, to spend as much as possible of that compensation on movies, restaurants, “fun” clothes, nice furniture, a good view, and such indulgences. (I don’t want to be inspired by pain, she said to her friend Heidi. I want to be inspired by love.) If John’s self-distracting industriousness meant little to her, so did intellectual or spiritual seeking of any kind. It was not that she was incapable, only disinterested. Heaps of possessions and vacations adorned her life, and she went on toward the grave, neither happy nor sad. Credit card companies, mortgage brokers, long-distance telephone salespeople and resort profiteers continually solicited her. While she did not like them, they partially satisfied her anxious desire to be acknowledged. Every now and then she used her credit cards to buy things she could not really afford, and throughout the first or even second payment the satisfaction she experienced was almost sexual. Everyone she knew lived similarly.

She was a tall, pleasant-looking person with long reddish-blonde hair. She remembered Irene as wearing round glasses which made her look old, with her hair up. Irene had never liked to do anything with John. Celia suffered few doubts that she was prettier and more agreeable than Irene.

She had enrolled in the paralegal course less out of any interest in John’s profession than to prove to both John and herself that she was not one of those hapless easy girls who wait around by telephones. Another thing she did to fill the time was keep lists, the latest of which went:

apologize to CCK

Rapp’s already fifty-seven. I don’t know what he’s going to do when he retires. Me, I’m counting the days, Mr. Singer had said to John that afternoon, scratching his baldness. — Three hundred eighty-nine.

I’m sorry, said John. Three hundred eighty-nine what?

Days, John.

John’s watch gleamed on his wrist at the edge of the white tablecloth. He raised his frosted mug of Sierra Nevada in a sort of toast and said: Well, Mr. Singer, we all have to reach that final deadline someday.

Ever the sentimentalist, John. Tell me this: Do you enjoy these private lunches?

Of course. By the way, the Brady contracts are almost ready for you to look at.

What do you mean, almost ready?

They’ll be ready on Thursday, unless Brady makes more changes.

Good, good. Brady’s definitely a live one. I know you take him out often on our nickel. Roland lives for private lunches, by the way. At least so he tells me. Mondays, lunch with Roland. Thursdays, lunch with John. See? I have it all here, right in my palmtop. It’s got a built-in deadline alarm, too. Does Roland confide in you?

I pretty much stick to my work, John replied. It’s no good getting confided in.

Do you feel as if you’re somehow in competition with Roland, John?

Well, you made me full partner. You didn’t make him full partner yet. I guess when you do, I’ll have to compete with him. For the time being, I ignore him.

You know, John, I really like you. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because you’re such an unreconstructed sonofabitch. You just don’t care. You’re a hard young man, and hard men get things done. Do you know who Heydrich was?

World War II was before my time, said John. I’m a know-nothing.

Come on, young John. Don’t let me down. What was Heydrich’s first name?

Reinhard. Do you want me to back-burner the tobacco deal so we can wrap up Brady? I have to tell you that he may insist on more changes.

What’s a meteope, John?

A rectangular slab above the architrave of a Doric temple. Can I go now?

Smiling a pink self-satisfed smile, leaning forward, Mr. Singer said: You know, Rapp and Singer have kept the same offices since ’67. That was when they still had cobalt at Walter Reed Hospital. I guess they mainly use electricity now. Sometimes cesium. I’m going through all that again with my sister. In ’67 it was my wife. You have a brother, don’t you, John? What would you do if your brother were in intensive care, waiting to die?

Pull the plug, said John. And I’m going to back-burner those tobacco people.

Mr. Singer had a trick — actually less than unique — of staring wide-eyed through his glasses into his interlocutor’s face and repeatedly addressing him by his first name, possibly because some book on business sincerity had advised it decades ago, or simply in order to retain the name in his memory. — Well, John, he’d say, it certainly was a tremendous disappointment about Reginald. He won’t be coming back. — I don’t suppose so, said John. — Mr. Singer leaned forward and took a deep breath, and John knew that the next word he would hear would be his own name.

John, he inquired, what does your brother do?

He’s a snoop.

A lot of attorneys don’t want to say after the Nader stuff that they’re using private eyes. But you have to do it, of course. Can you recommend him, John? We’d use him on your say-so.

My brother? Hell, I don’t know.

You said you’d pull the plug on him — hee, hee! Oh, yes, now I remember that he let us down that warehouse job. I’d forgotten about that. Or was he sick? Didn’t you tell me he was sick? Say something, John.

You were talking about cancer, Mr. Singer.

Cesium is what they use these days. At least that’s what they tell me. You’ve never had cancer in your family, have you, John?

Not yet, Mr. Singer. But there’s always a first time.

In my case, it’ll be the third time, if we count my wife. Of course a wife is not a blood relative.

John, of course, had no idea that just then Mr. Singer was remembering his young wife’s lonely moments before the mirror, searching for her first wrinkle, wanting not to find it, hoping that when it came her husband would say that it didn’t matter. Mr. Singer had caught her in front of the mirror almost every day when she was Irene’s age.

So you were diagnosed? said John, squeezing his napkin in his lap. Well, I’m very sorry to hear that. And your parents?

Auto accident. Are your parents still alive?

Yes, said John, knowing that by the rules of discourse Mr. Singer, by virtue of his unsolicited confession, was now entitled to pick and poke through John’s private life as he pleased.

You know, John, sometimes it helps to talk about these things. You understand why Rapp’s not here today?

Doctor’s appointment, said John, who knew everything.

When he heard my news, he got a scare. He went in for a checkup. They’re probably giving him the sigmoidoscope treatment even as we—

Raspberry venison and spicy mussel salad, said the waiter. Enjoy your meal, gentlemen.

He’s new, said Mr. Singer. John, is our waiter new?

I don’t think so. His face looks very familiar.

And how’s life, John?

Fine.

I know it’s a painful subject.

Nothing compared to the sigmoidoscope treatment, said John, and Mr. Singer laughed and from the first steaming blue shell-tomb extracted with little silver pincers the occupant, which he dipped in butter and laid softly upon a bed of noodles.

John, I’m going to ask Roland to help you with Brady.

Is that a vote of no confidence?

Not at all, not at all. But you and Roland need to learn to work together—

Ah, thought John to himself. That means that he wants to make Roland full partner. Of course Rapp might not agree. I wonder if I should go along with this or make waves…

Do you object?

All right. I object.

Then I won’t ask him. You see, I’m actually trying to help.

Noted and appreciated, said John through his teeth.

How are your in-laws coping?

They’re not really on my wavelength. We don’t keep in contact.

Ah. And how’s your mother?

Fine. Better, actually…

Why don’t you and your brother get on? Mr. Singer suddenly inquired.

Well, do you remember when I came to work with my left hand in a bandage? He slammed a car door on my hand.

And it wasn’t an accident?

Nope. Hank doesn’t commit accidents; he commits crimes.

Well, too bad we’re not in the personal injury business, said Mr. Singer with a wink, trying to be upbeat, although with John that was sometimes difficult.

It had been a hundred and seven degrees in Sacramento at noon on Monday when Tyler passed the sidewalk of unfriendly summer school kids who kept wiping their sweaty upper lips, and he turned into his mother’s driveway, whose hedges gave off the sour-bitter smell of malathion; his mother had been having problems with scale insects, so she went to Home Masters and purchased more of that poison sometimes used to commit murders, then went to work with her pump spray can. As soon as he got out of the car, his head began to ache, he wasn’t sure whether from the malathion or simply from the heat, to which he was no longer acclimated. His T-shirt stuck to his chest and shoulders. A truck went by, clothed with grafitti as so many of them were now. There was a sour-bitter taste in his throat. All auto doors locked, his duffel bag over his shoulder, Tyler approached the front door, hating Sacramento, and rang the bell.

The front door opened almost at once, offering him air-conditioned air with a sour-bitter odor. It was John.

Has Mom been going crazy with the pesticides again? said Tyler, concealing his surprise at this apparition.

Oh, so you can smell it, too? said John. Well, don’t just let the hot air in.

Tyler stepped inside, and John closed the door, a bit too quickly, he thought, a bit too loudly. The two brothers went into the living room. John sat down on the sofa, staring down at a water glass a quarter full of Scotch. Tyler went to the kitchen and got a bottle of fizzy water from the fridge. He was still carrying his duffel bag. He walked back to the front hall and set it down behind the umbrella stand. Then he returned to the living room, where John sat holding the untasted glass.

Where’s Mom? Tyler said.

You mean you don’t even know where Mom is?

No, I guess I don’t. How are you doing, John?

Fine. Mom’s chest pains got pretty bad yesterday. I just drove her to the hospital. I would have waited there, but she insisted that I come back here to let you in. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t have left you a note…

So that’s how it is, Tyler thought. He said aloud: Well, John, I’m here now, so should we go to the hospital?

It doesn’t matter now, said John vaguely, waving his hand.

Tyler inspected his brother closely. He said: John, are you drunk?

Let’s leave me out of this.

Leave you out of what? You always want to be left out, or have something left out, or — oh, forget it.

I could punch you in the face right now, John said. The glass trembled in his hand.

Tyler was so made — or had made himself — that any threat effectively depersonalized and professionalized him, lowering between himself and the world several thicknesses of bulletproof glass. He smiled mirthlessly at his brother and remained in place, watching for any indication of abrupt movement from this body which might possibly strike at him.

Oh, you goddamn coward, said John after a while.

Tyler continued to smile, saying nothing.

Now John raised the glass to his lips and gulped it. He grimaced. His shoulders slumped. Tyler, with his not inconsiderable knowledge both of his brother and of violent people, was satisfied now that there would be no open battle. There had not been for a very long time. Because alcohol makes possible the realization of certain ugly wishes which fear (politely known as reason) usually keeps locked away in the lowest iron corridors of the cerebellum, Tyler had experienced for several instants a sickening surge of dread, far surpassing the anxiety he’d felt at the news of their mother’s condition — not that he didn’t love his mother; nor was he at all, as John had intimated, a coward; but there had been a number of occasions when as children they’d bloodied one another’s noses; the antipathy between them was now so old that its causes were as lost to his knowledge as the creation of the world; he did not want to see it come out. Once while scuba diving he’d discovered within inches of him an anemone wriggling its tendrils, like any rotten apple upon whose top live and labor maggot swarms; and the sight of that actually inoffensive creature sometimes came back to him in dreams; his skull was the apple, and he did not want to feel the maggots of anger and hatred burst out. That was what he dreaded. And now, of course, Irene lay dead between them. When you swim up toward the surface of the sea you see a dimpled mirror of great sacredness; this is the goal of life and art and reason, to break through this barrier and leave the anemones once more invisible in the blue darkness; but on the other side one finds mosquitoes and weary heat; one goes to work and gets older; the anemones are still there, but they cannot come out; neither (more’s the pity) can the beautiful corals beneath the sea, or the schools of yellow fishes raining down headfirst; that was one of the reasons why Tyler continued to pursue the Queen of the Whores, because he was convinced that the secret tremendousness in which she lived would be lovely like that; and anyhow anemones inside other people’s skulls didn’t bother him; it was only his own that he feared; John’s anemones of course were Tyler’s.

Well, he said, should we call the hospital?

Let’s just go, said John. What’s the point of sitting around here? I’m drunk. I’m worried about Mom. You’d better drive.

They went north on Highway 160, passing the Chinese restaurant where less than half a year ago Tyler, John, their mother and Irene had come for sizzling shrimp and cashew chicken. It had been a round table they sat at, Tyler flanked on either side by his blood relatives (although since the table accomodated five there was, naturally, an empty place between the two brothers). By some coincidence he found himself directly across from Irene, who smilingly enjoyed the food.

You probably want another helping, don’t you? John said to her affectionately. You’d eat anything. You’re a vacuum cleaner. No wonder you’re getting fat.

Irene lowered her huge almond eyes.

John slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. Across the table, Tyler, electrified with jealousy, gazed into Irene’s averted face.

It’s not serious, the doctor said to John, Tyler being the less well dressed of the two. Has she been following her diet?

I’m sure she has, John replied. She takes very good care of herself. But I’ll have a talk with her. If Mom’s been naughty, I guess I’ll just have to lean on her a little.

Well said, well said! I can see that Mrs. Tyler’s in very good hands. Now, you’ll want to keep the air conditioning going while this heat wave lasts. That will make it easier on her heart.

He turned to Tyler. — And you are…?

The other son, Tyler said.

Oh, said the doctor, turning back to John. I can see she’s in good hands.

They passed the Chinese restaurant.

How are you feeling, Mom? said Tyler.

Not very well, honey. I want to lie down.

Nobody said anything. John looked gloomy and anxious. They got home and John insisted that their mother lean on his shoulder while he helped her into the house.

Can you make it upstairs, Mom? Tyler heard him saying.

Tyler poured himself a drink out of John’s bottle. Then, slowly, he went upstairs.

Can we go to the store and get you something, Mom? he said.

That’s already taken care of, said John sharply. Don’t tire her out.

Tyler leaned against the dresser, smiling sarcastically. Their mother was lying in bed looking at them both as if she wanted to say something.

You just lie there and rest, Mom, John was saying. We’ll take care of everything.

Have a good rest, Mom, said Tyler, a lump in his throat.

He went downstairs to wait for his brother. He finished his drink, which was very smooth and good; John of course bought nothing but the best. Again he wondered how much Irene’s coffin had cost.

John was still upstairs with their mother. Tyler stood up. He went to the kitchen to wash his glass. There was a saucer in the sink with bread crumbs on it, and he washed that, too, remembering a night a year or so previous when he and John and Irene had all been here for dinner and Irene had gone out to the kitchen to do the dishes. John was telling their mother some story about work. Had their mother been telling John a story, Tyler never would have chanced it, but since John had no greater listener than himself, and their mother came in a close second in that department, hanging, as always, on John’s every word, Tyler got up quietly and passed through the swinging double doors to the kitchen where Irene stood over the sink with her hands in detergent lather, and he slipped his arms around her from behind. He had meant only to embrace her about the waist, and it shocked him to find his palms had opened and were grasping her firm little breasts. Her nipples were hard against his hands. Irene continued to wash the dishes, not pulling away, not saying anything. He stood there like that with her for a moment, and then he let her go. She went on washing the dishes.

Leaning up against the refrigerator, Tyler had said: I wish I could have married you.

You’re so sweet, said Irene.

I wonder what that means, Tyler thought to himself.

He got a bottle of fizzy water for his mother, and one for John, and went back into the dining room where John’s story was still going on. When it had finished, John pushed the bottle away from him and said: And how was Irene, Henry?

Later, when John was in the bathroom, Irene came to him and laid her head down on his shoulder, and he stroked her hair.

He finished rinsing the glass and saucer. He thought to himself: After Mom dies, I don’t want to come back to this house ever again. It hurts too much.

He heard John’s footsteps, quick and sure, coming down the stairs. The booze must have worn off. He heard the steps in the living room, then he heard them come toward him.

How is she? he said.

You’re not thinking about Mom, said John, unsmiling. You never think about her. I know who you’re thinking about.

Should we go buy her some groceries?

All right, said John, slugging down a glass of cold water from the sink. I’ll drive.

Where are you parked?

Down by Mrs. Antoniou’s house. I left the driveway for you. There’s not enough room for both of us.

Tyler waved at Mrs. Antoniou, whom he saw peering at them from behind her tiny window in the front door. Her lawn was as unhealthily dry as always, and marred by crab grass. The Rosens next door always complained, worrying, perhaps, that crabgrass was as catching as crabs. Domino had had crabs. They got in the car, and John inserted the key. Something chimed, and their shoulder belts slowly whirred down. John fastened his lap belt, but Tyler didn’t. John frowned but didn’t say anything. Resting his chin lovingly upon his own left shoulder, John backed out of the driveway and swung the car’s hindquarters west. Then he shifted and let out the clutch.

How’s work? said Tyler.

Fine, said John.

You still working on Brady’s new company?

Oh, I told you about that? said his brother, surprised. That’s right; you were one of his clients.

No, he was one of my clients.

That’s what I meant, Hank. He came to us right after the Peterson case was resolved.

Pretty lucrative?

The Peterson case?

No, I meant Brady.

Very.

Listen, John. There’s something you ought to know.

Sour grapes, is it? said John with his usual quick intuition of Tyler’s worst motives. You want to backstab Brady because he fired you? I’m going to take us to Priceway.

Okay, fine, said Tyler.

So what should I know?

You know what Brady’s business is?

Of course I know. Are you saying I don’t do my homework?

It’s virtual girls, right?

Well, that and a lot of other things. Slot machines, restaurants, a family arcade. So what?

He may be riding for a fall. I’ve heard from at least one source that those girls are real, although I haven’t verified it. It’s forced prostitution and maybe worse, do you understand?

Yeah, you’d know about that, said John, steering. Look, Hank. Don’t worry your head about that. You’re way out of your depth.

Okay, John. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.

His brother laughed and laughed, so that Tyler could see the adam’s apple jerking and twitching. — That’s news, he finally said.

There was a long silence, and then John finally said in a tentative voice: About Brady, I…

You what?

Oh, forget it. Forget the whole thing.

There was another silence, and then John said: Well, are you willing to check him out for me?

What do you mean?

You’re a private eye, Hank. What do you think I mean?

We have access to this stuff, yeah, we’re licensed, and I maintain a lot of insurance. I really think if we don’t self-regulate the government’s going to come along and do it for us.

In other words, no.

Oh, I’ll do it. I’ve already done it. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. What do you want to know?

You’re telling me you won’t do it. You’re saying you won’t help out your own brother.

I never said that at all.

Then what’s all this crap about self-regulation? You think I don’t know a euphemism for no? You don’t have the guts to say no outright, do you?

You know, John, I’m tired of your crap, Tyler was shocked to hear himself say. I’m really tired of it. How long are you going to hold Irene’s death against me?

Let’s leave my wife out of this. Don’t ever let me hear you mention her name. You have no right to mention her name, do you understand me?

If you want me to leave her out, then don’t keep bringing her up. You’re the one who keeps making insinuations.

They sat there with trees and houses and street signs slowly passing them, and John’s throat jerked, and John said: You’re right. I admit it. Now tell me this. Did you ever go to bed with Irene?

No, John, I never did. I won’t deny that I kind of envied you…

You crooked bastard, his brother laughed.

What does that mean?

You know what it means, Hank. Hank the prick.

So you’re calling me a liar, John?

You were a liar before you came out of Mom.

I’ll let that one pass. Now, John, for the last time, I’m telling you that I never slept with Irene. Do you believe me or not?

Forget it, said John. We can have this out after Mom — after Mom’s better. We can’t stress out Mom.

No, I’m not going to forget it, Tyler said. We’re going to have this one out right now. Either you believe me or you don’t. If you believe me you’ve got to stop making those remarks, because I can’t tolerate them anymore. If you don’t believe me, John, then I guess I, uh, I don’t want to see you.

Is that a promise? I should be so lucky.

We can work out Mom’s care so that we don’t have to meet.

You feel pretty strongly about this, don’t you, shithead?

Okay, John, one week off, one week on. I’ll take the rest of this week being on call for Mom. If she needs me, I’ll come up. You take next week. She’ll like it better that way. It’s not good for her to see us—

Tell me about it.

So, will that fit into your schedule?

John made an illegal U-turn. — Let me drive you back to the house then, Hank, he said. You can get in your car and go back to the city right now. I’ll call you if there’s an emergency.

Oh, so you’ll take the rest of this week then?

That’s right. I’m already up here, and unlike you, some people have to work.

Let me give you some money for Mom’s groceries, said Tyler. Is forty bucks enough?

You can keep your goddamned stinking money, said John. Let’s make it Monday to Sunday. That way we each get a weekend.

Sure, John.

And another thing. Don’t let me catch you down at Irene’s grave anymore.

Tyler said nothing, but he reddened with rage.

Did you hear me?

I heard you, John. Why don’t you let me out here? It’s only a few blocks to Mom’s house. I’d really rather walk it.

John accelerated. He was doing almost fifty in a thirty-five mile an hour zone. He went through a red light. His face was the color of brick. Tyler felt extremely hot, and there was a hurtful tightness inside his ribs.

I said, did you hear me?

Cemeteries are public places, John, said Tyler with a deliberately goading laugh, and watched John grip the wheel harder with his right hand while his left hand became a fist and began to swing toward him as John’s face turned away from the road, and just then there came a yowling of horns and John’s eyes flicked rapidly back to the view ahead; they’d just driven through an intersection, and a police car was already coming with full siren.

You don’t want to hit me now, John, said Tyler. Not in view of a cop. That wouldn’t be good for your career.

John pulled over.

Not here, John, said Tyler. This is a bus zone.

He opened the passenger door and leaped out. John, murderous-eyed, began to reach toward him, so Tyler slammed the door on his hand. He heard his brother scream with pain, and instantly his gloating, furious joy became anguish.

O George Eliot with your garden parties, formal dinners, long leisurely meetings, family discussions; O Dostoyevsky (beloved of Mrs. Tyler) with your glittering-eyed train-companions listening to each other’s life stories, your wretched, teeming flats inhabited by souls intoxicated by quarreling and religion; I ask you, where have all the interlocutors gone? For there are more people than ever; and more strange worlds in San Francisco, which does itself comprise a world, than can ever be plumbed! And yet Tyler cogitates alone, as does his brother. Is it television that’s done it? Or is there some other reason why people just don’t talk to each other anymore? Granted, Dan Smooth is eager to talk; he has a longing to defecate his soul’s excrement upon the consciousnesses of others; and Mr. Rapp and Mr. Singer will both likewise unburden themselves to John if they are in the mood; Celia yearns for John to communicate with her; Mrs. Tyler checks in regularly with both her sons; Irene, perhaps, seeks to explain something from beyond the grave; all the same, when I peer into the sky-blue screen of the computer on which I compose this, I see all the way down to San Francisco where Henry Tyler himself sits alone. And so many people, too! Old Chinese with bowed, capped heads, wearing jackets the color of smoke, passed slowly, occluding the gratinged streetwall as Tyler sat wearily inhaling the scent of green tea, and static distorted the white legs of television baseball players into wriggling shrimp. Less rudely than indifferently the red-jerseyed waiter set his dinner down. Snow peas, miniature corn, and white chicken pieces shone with oil. Ten dollars. Outraged, he under-tipped. Although he had been to Chinatown with Irene, it force-fed him no sad associations, unlike all the worlds of coffee shops in Noe Valley, each with its own devotees and sidewalk benches, its courtyard cafés and restaurants, to several of which he had taken Irene, its liquor stores whose virtuously learned salesmen could unblinkingly explain the palate-differences between Caol Ila and Ardbeg; on those foggy, chilly summer days, women strode along rapidly with lowered heads; boys with boyfriends walked the dog. People were talking there; he was all wrong; there were no silences. A sudden rattle of a startled pigeon’s wings, and then a family gathering of smiling Chinese punctuated the day, above which the faux Jurassic terrariums of trees reflected in the watchful bay windows of two- and three-storey Victorians provided spurious greenery. A paramedic sat in his ambulance truck, the engine idling. He, or someone like him, had probably sat just like that while his colleagues brought Irene out.

Tyler drove down to Capp Street, but there were no women on the corner. Maybe there’d been a sweep, or maybe it was merely too early.

He drove to the Tenderloin and thought he saw Domino, but she disappeared into a hotel too quickly to be sure.

He drove down to Mission Street and parked at Fifth. Then he began to stroll aimlessly. Inside the new Museum of Modern Art building, which was striped with smooth black and rough grey stone, there was a Frida Kahlo exhibit, and a bespectacled woman said rapidly to her companion: All of her portraits deal with her pain and suffering.

This concept seemed to make the other woman very happy. — Go ahead, thought Tyler to himself. Go get empowered.

I guess she’s the patron saint of women, a sour man was saying to his buddy. In this show they relate to her through their menstruations or something.

Christ, he thought, I don’t know which of them is worse. Probably the guy, because he’s so obviously malicious, whereas Ms. Spectacles there is just a parrot. I guess I prefer parrots.

Then suddenly he recollected Domino on the bed in the Tenderloin hotel room. She’d complained about something and he’d sarcastically replied that this heart bled. — Of course, it always bleeds around now, he’d said. It’s that time of the month. — He began to sweat with shame when he remembered, admitting to himself that he was as boorish as anyone. But then defiance stung him and he thought: Well, she deserved it. She was so humorless and shrill. She kept asking me if I was a misogynist. She kept…

He went to the gift shop and bought his mother an exhibition catalogue.

The sour man was at the gift shop also. He wasn’t buying anything, anything. Tyler saw him spitefully fold down the page of a book, while the other man grimaced with mirth. He kept saying unpleasant things about women. Tyler started hating him. He wanted to feel tolerance or even compassion for the man, because hatred on such grounds really constituted hatred for himself. Tyler might not actually be, as Domino had labeled him in her catholic hostility, a misogynist, but he confessed his grey and nasty edges. The encounter with John had left him in a state of anxious irritation; he was not himself. He had a friend in Noe Valley who’d embarked on a program of self-improvement through meditation. Tyler asked whether meditation would in and of itself induce serenity (he had in mind the feeling he experienced when he sat inside the Roxie movie theater with its smell of stale popcorn, waiting for the commencement of some comfortingly ancient print of a European film about other people’s problems, with subtitles which would tersely recapitulate dialogue of a picturesque langorousness and sadness). The friend was of two minds about that. If one’s aim was to reach a higher spiritual level, the end result might be increased coherence, and thus perhaps decreased strain on the soul; but to get to that point, one would surely be required to rearrange oneself, which necessitated disequilibrium. It was obvious to Tyler that his relations with John were moving toward some permanent conclusion of honest mutual exposure. But what if that change were actually, as any superficial observer would conclude, a regression such as driving down the hill to Gough Street where it was low and dark with many weak stale lights? For that matter, one might propose as an example that same Roxie Theater, where he had once taken Irene to see “Queen of Hearts,” in hopes of holding her hand in the darkness. The movie had not yet begun. Tyler was already feeling serenity (mixed, to be sure, with pleasurable anticipation; he was hoping that Irene’s delicious palm might sweat against his at all the thrilling parts); however, some noisy boys with yarn in their long hair were sitting in the row ahead; and Irene, shocked, said to him: I’m just looking at those four people in front of me and they’re drinking hard liquor! — She was a little prudish; she could not enjoy herself after that. — Tyler’s friend had proposed that a graphic representation of travel from one spiritual level to another might well require many more than two axes, so that one might simultaneously be rising on one plane and sinking on another. The Gospels said that a seed could not flower until it had fallen into the earth and died. Tyler could not remember exactly how the parable had gone. He wished to know more about Christ, even if only to struggle against Him and clarify his own allegiance, which, as Dan Smooth had jeeringly insisted, might well be to the Canaanite idols. If he was satanic or ungodly or merely unbrotherly, wasn’t it worse to fog over the fact, pretending that he was still trying to be good? Although he still felt wretched whenever he recalled that hot afternoon in his mother’s living room with the reddish-brown blinds drawn against the sun and his mother asking whether he and Irene had betrayed John, his anguish contained a tincture, however pale, of relief. He had not obfuscated. He had quite simply and bluntly refused to answer her charges. It’s too late for that, he had said. No matter what he might fear or yearn for, month by month his existence was clarifying itself. The issue of Irene, rather than dissolving with Irene’s dead flesh, continually took on a more evident and permanent materiality. Irene no longer lay but stood, no, towered, between himself and his mother, between himself and John. Well, let it be so. Irene was the seed of Christ. She had died, and now she rose up bearing leaves and fruit like the grand old tree in his mother’s front yard. Tyler had not and would not contest anything. He would let all aspersions be. He would wait, and live, until the change within him was complete; then he’d know what to do.

But he was afraid. And his was one of those natures which do not cower, but bristle at a threat. He scorned to reply to his mother or argue with John, but he could not help feeling an aching resentment which narrowed his eyes and ground tooth against tooth within his mouth. The sour man at the gift shop, who probably was unafflicted by awareness of Tyler’s very presence, was flipping through the catalogue now, calling Frida Kahlo a man-hater, a vagina-centered mediocrity, a once-a-month artist. To the sour man, it seemed, no woman had a brain, and Frida Kahlo’s paintbrush was one with the tongues of the ice-cream-licking girls in the bright bay window of Rory’s Twisted Scoop. And Tyler was incensed. The reason, of course, was that the whole world incensed him just then, but seeing that would have entailed seeing his own absurdity, so it merely seemed to him at that moment that any slighting nastiness directed toward femininity must insult Irene’s memory. He craved Irene. Closing his eyes, he saw her once again. She had lost a little weight since her marriage and her skin was stretched tight over her cheekbones so that she resembled a pale, debauched skull. Round and round, round and round. He had nowhere to go.

I see you’re actually buying that catalogue, the sour man said to him.

I’m a misogynist, Tyler said. I’m just buying it to jerk off to.

The sour man, uncertain whether Tyler was on his side or instead a sarcastic enemy, remained silent. The sour man’s friend, more astute, glared.

The salesgirl took the catalogue out of Tyler’s hand to scan it through the red laser eye-beam beside the register and said: I heard what you said.

I’m evil, Tyler replied. But I do have enough money to pay for that. Yep, I’m a paying customer. I’m an American.

I think you’re disgusting.

Tyler could hear the sniggers of the two diabolical men beside him. He had struck a blow against feminism. He had come out on the side of Satan. They were sure that he was one of them now.

He turned around and said to them: I bear the Mark of Cain.

Then again they fell into a baffled silence.

You’re sick, said the salesgirl.

It was a clammy summer’s night in the Marina, lights frozen at the bases of harbor-masts. He went up Buchanan Street, and across from the Safeway met a bright window offering row upon row of massage chairs in an empty room. Near a dessert shop — yes, almost within reach of the fragrance of chocolate and steamed milk — he spied another parking garage, now closed, and peered down a long curvy greasy tunnel of light which passed beneath a round mirror, different only in scale from what the dentist always put in his mouth; then a right turn put an end to his seeing. The Queen could be there now; she could be anywhere. But no — why would she be here? This place was too far from the humid commerce she fed on. He sighed and trudged on, a little cold. Farther up the street, at Bay, a store of telescopes on tripods and binoculars in narrow glass shelves on the wall caught his attention; it had probably been closed for a good four or five hours now. Did John ever shop here? Tyler turned onto Bay and stood beneath the greenish foggy sky, on his left white flowers so bright and lovely and uncruel.

Oh, what a lovely catalogue! his mother said. Thank you, Henry. It looks as if it does full justice to the original. The colors are beautiful. What do you think of Frida Kahlo’s work?

I think it’s pretty good, but not as good as Diego Rivera’s, he said. I respect her.

It’s really quite moving, don’t you think?

Yes, I do, he said.

That was really thoughtful of you, his mother said. What a treasure.

Well, I’m glad you like it. How are you feeling?

A little weak, but not so… Henry, where’s John? I was under the impression that you were coming up with John…

And meanwhile John worked late at the office, beneath and among those great plaid and pulsing mirrors called skyscrapers. One time Chocolate, high on crystal meth, got chased out of the Tenderloin by the police, and when she came into the financial district it was rush hour with summer’s blue and gold peach-fuzz light on the skyscrapers, and a businessman in a multitude of businessmen marched crushingly toward her; Chocolate’s eyes could not let go of his face. — That man’s a skyscraper! she thought crazily. — He’s so tall and wide and rectangular! He’s shouting something about smoking cigars with his friends… — And indeed at that hour all the skyscrapers were moving like chessmen, so it seemed to her. Twenty-one storeys above her, chessmaster John moved his queen’s knight’s pawn on the tobacco brief, while in Pacific Heights lonely Celia sat smoking cigarettes, waiting for him to telephone.

Do say something clever for us, John, said Mr. Rapp.

I don’t feel like it.

You’re not going to disappoint us, now, are you, John? Because that just wouldn’t be good enough.

I am afraid that we are going to find pleasures in some cases opposite to pleasures, John snarled. — Plato, Philebus, 13a.

Well said! cried Mr. Rapp, clapping his hands. But is that perhaps a comment on the present proceedings? You see, everybody, how clever our new full partner is? Roland, could you top that? And, by the way, what’s your impression of Plato, John? I dip into the Laws from time to time…

Just another egghead, Mr. Rapp, said John. There are too many eggheads in the world.

Now, John. I need to ask you something. With your legal bent, and your gift for recitation, aren’t you yourself, perhaps (dare I say it), an egghead?

No, Mr. Rapp. I’m a performing animal. I perform under duress, or for a reward.

Ouch, John, that was cruel! It may be true, but sometimes it’s better not to say those things.

Sunflower died, and Beatrice said: You know those candle with the color? It’s better to buy them than to make them. Otherwise the dead people, they doan accept.

But Domino said: What should I buy that bitch a candle for? One time she begged me to show some heart and loan her ten to fix, so I did and then she never paid me back. She just pissed my kindness away.

The Queen, who until just now had been alone going through her spells like old Chinese women rapidly shuffling through an immense pile of purple eggplants, tossing them all aside, searching for the perfect vegetable, said: Domino, I want you to be quiet now an’ listen. Sunflower died for you. She laid herself down an’ took those bullets of pain that were comin’ for you, to which Domino replied in bored unwholesome fashion: Nobody died for me, not even Jesus, and the Queen said: Not Jesus, that’s exactly my point, Dom. You gotta find the other kind of happiness. I mean that Canaan brand… to which Domino replied: Oh, please! then said to Beatrice (just to get a rise out of her): You know why I call Sunflower a bitch?

She’s no bitch.

You know why? Because she was a dog. And now you know what she is? A dead dog. A dead, stinking dog!

That Henry Tyler’s comin’ here again, announced the tall man.

Domino brightened. — Henry, boy! she shouted. I know you have a relationship with your dick, but why don’t you zip up your fly?

All rightie now, the Queen chuckled. All right.

Why you doan care about Sunflower? whispered Beatrice. She was a nice, nice girl…

C’mere, Bea, said the Queen.

But Beatrice leaned against a concrete block, resting her big cheek on her fingers. When she closed her eyes she could see the white door of eternity, cracked through the whitewash, now gaping ajar, so that there was a darkness, with something rough and shaggy beside it; she could see Sunflower ascending the bare brown hill of death, drawing near that door around which beautiful little girls peered in dirt-streaked dresses, waiting to welcome Sunflower with their black hair and black eyes. She heard the death’s-head master of ceremonies whisper: Sweet as a pastry, hot as a candle, bright as the sun!

Since Beatrice was saying nothing, Domino thought to see in her what she had always perceived in Sunflower, namely, the shine of naked idiocy, so she said: You’re a dog, too, bitch! at which the Queen, sighing, got up and went out; but Beatrice replied, smiling bitterly: They say, doan hit that dog, but if you die, that dog will carry you across the black river.

I dunno what the fuck you’re talking about. You bitchy little bitch…

Come on, Bea, said Strawberry. Let’s go make some money.

Bye-bye, Henry, said Beatrice. Anytime you call me, I come running, running!

I get it, said Tyler with a laugh.

He stood there a little uncertainly, wondering whether he were supposed to follow the Queen.

Meanwhile, waggling their asses and smiling into the oncoming traffic, the two whores strolled backward down Sutter past Jones to the old Commodore Hotel outside which they waited for an hour or two, then shifted battle stations to O’Farrell and Jones by the Gazebo Smoke Shop with its zebras of tiles. It was hot and bright enough to make Strawberry squint, so they went and stood by the 501 Club where the shadow of something fraying on a wire trembled just above the orange cocktail glass on the sign. Down the gently sloping street, a building which many decades ago might have been called a skyscraper stood up-pointing like a stubby hypodermic needle with an American flag on it on that sweltering Sunday afternoon, no one going in or out of the locked gate of the Hong Kong Oriental Massage.

Fat sunny Beatrice, crossing her arms under her breasts, her treetrunk thighs spread wide apart as she leaned against a barfront, finally said: You sad about Sunflower?

Sure, baby. I know Maj will give her a nice funeral. You’ll see.

Who you like better, Sunflower or Domino?

Ain’t no comparison. Sunflower I love, but Domino’s just a sick, sadistic, unhealthy, unwholesome—

What’s the worst thing that make her so bad?

She has HIV, you know, and she’s still selling pussy. I call that selling murder.

They stood there all afternoon. Their feet got tired. The sun went behind a cloud, and then it got foggy and then it rained. Beatrice sighed, lifting one foot, then the other. The rain came down harder and harder.

A drunken panhandler lay down under his shopping cart. Rainwater washed his purple face.

Hey, said Strawberry, shaking him. Hey, mister. Don’t lie down there to sleep in the rain. You’ll get pneumonia and die.

The man vomited. Strawberry helped him to his feet. He puked all over her, then slowly wove down the sidewalk, leaving his cart behind.

Strawberry began to laugh. — You think I can still make money this way?

Oh, shit, chucked Beatrice. Oh, shit. You doan smell so nice now, honey. Thank God for rain. Maybe this rain is gonna wash you clean.

Fuck that, said Strawberry. My feet hurt. Let’s go back.

You go, said Beatrice. I gotta get well now. I need it.

I got an extra dose of china white, said Strawberry. I’ll share with you if you promise to pay me back.

Okay, thank you, baby. Let’s go. I pay you back tomorrow. I promise. Where’s our Mama gonna stay tonight?

She said that place off Eddy Street, you know, that black hotel…

I know. That bad, bad place.

Don’t worry, Bea. Queen’s gonna be there.

I know. Oh, my back hurts. You have that china white on you?

No, you wait here. I got to go get my secret stash. I’ll be right back.

She ran off. After an hour, Beatrice, bitter and exhausted, was just about to give up when one of her regulars, a middle-aged widower whose paunch curved like an old Union Pacific roundhouse, pulled up and she ran to his car. They went to the Lonely Island Hotel.

Short time? said the Indian woman at the top of the stairs.

Beatrice nodded.

Fifteen dollars, said the Indian woman.

The john reached into his wallet and paid. The Indian woman led them to a room which overlooked the street. In the wastebasket lay a freshly used condom, oozing slime.

Beatrice took off all her clothes, eased herself down onto the mushy, unstable mattress, and immediately fell asleep. She was dreaming of Sunflower. The john, who was a good man, stood there for a while watching his fat and pretty whore lying on the bed snoring with her legs spread, ever so slightly moving her abscessed pelvis in and out. Then he put thirty dollars onto the nightstand and went out, softly closing the door behind him.

Beatrice dreamed of Sunflower.

Later that same night, while Mrs. Tyler was bathing Mugsy, and Dan Smooth sat on his porch reading in the Sacramento Bee that chemical castration had been approved after all for recidivist sex offenders, Tyler, coughing, sauntered through the Tenderloin and came into the Wonderbar, which the tall man had just entered with a stolen calculator, rolling his bloodshot eyes, croaking: Hey, you want this? It’s got a built-in briefcase. How can you be without it? until he got eighty-sixed by Heavyset and stamped out cursing, vengefully smearing on the sidewalk some stinking shoe-ooze which was yellow-green like the meat of a Mexican avocado. And of course it was at the Wonderbar that Tyler found Domino, who was not yet crack-paranoid but her face had already turned the color of weak tea in a glass in one of those Vietnamese soup restaurants on Jones Street, and she wore a mask of sweat.

He sat down beside her. — Where’s Maj?

Henry, you don’t know shit. She never comes in here. Not unless she really needs something.

So that’s why you’re here, huh? While the cat’s away the mice will play.

Oh, fuck off.

You don’t look too well.

I’m not.

Did you get that photo of you I left with Justin?

It looked like me, she said happily.

You remember when I took that?

No, I guess I was too fucked up…

Tyler coughed.

And what’s wrong with you? said the blonde.

Oh, just a light case of AIDS. The gift that keeps on giving, know what I mean?

What did you say? she cried in a rage. I can’t believe what you just said.

Oh, I’d never give you AIDS, Domino, he said, coughing.

She relaxed. — Have a lozenge, she said, opening a flat silver tin of pills.

Why, thank you, sweetheart.

What’ll you have, dear? said Loreena the barmaid.

Shot of tequila, he said.

Loreena poured the shot to the brim as always, brought the lime and said: Three hundred and fifty dollars. Tyler gave her four dollars and squeezed the lime in.

Here, he said to Domino. You want a sip before I mix my germs in?

All right, the blonde said, poising her twin straws over the glass like a blonde mosquito. — Hey, wait a second. Why’s it so cloudy? Did you put your dick in there?

Sweetheart, if I put my dick in it would be ruby red, he told her.

Oh, you’re so sick! she chuckled. Suddenly she hugged him. — That’s why I like you…

Another john sat down next to them and said to Tyler as if the blonde weren’t there: She’s beautiful, isn’t she?

Yes she is.

Buy you a drink?

All right. Thank you.

I grew up in this bar, the john said. I literally grew up right behind that pool table. I’m an alcoholic, and proud of it. My Daddy was an alcoholic, too. He popped off at forty-eight. I’ve been in this bar all my life, and I’ll never forget the night Domino first walked in.

Uh huh, said Tyler.

The john drank down his beer as rapidly as a police car speeding the wrong way down Turk Murphy alley in Chinatown, and then he ordered another one, hushed and resigned connoisseur, unlike John and Celia, who were wine-tasting in Napa in a babble of words, driving from vineyard to vineyard so that stakes and inhumanly regular leaf-heights strobed by beneath the tree-swollen hills, Celia remarking on the lovely weather, John checking each winery off the map as they pulled up to the tasting room. But as soon as the two beers had passed into the john’s blood, he likewise brightened and found his strength, now feeling as able as John or Celia to kick up a little social dust, praise God, so he clapped his hand on Tyler’s shoulder and with a smile as ingenuous as a little boy’s asked him what sort of work he did.

As little as possible, said Tyler, unimpressed by his rejuvenation.

I’m a welder, the man rushed on, or I should say I was a welder. They just laid me off last week.

I’m sorry to hear that, Tyler said. In that case I’ll buy you the next round.

Well, so you and I have something in common, the john said.

You mean Domino, said Tyler wearily.

She’s a peach, ain’t she? the john said, glowing with enthusiasm.

Domino, are you a peach?

Oh, fuck off, Henry.

You already said that.

Well, fuck off again.

You know what she and I make together? the john cackled breathlessly.

Let me guess. Peaches and cream.

Oh, you’re so sick, chuckled Domino.

Tyler had sometimes seen this man going out to get pizza or soda or whatever Domino needed when she was too drunk and had to run into the ladies’ room to vomit and after that slowly let her head sag down onto the bar in that nightly sunset of hers. The john took care of her. He fed her as if she were a baby bird. His bald, ugly face shone with sacredness when he was helping her. He loved her. Even when she was terrible to him she was good to him, because she gave him something to love.

I took her to our Christmas party, the john confided with a blush, and everybody kept comin’ up to me and sayin’: Who’s that goodlookin’ broad?

How long did she stay with you? Tyler asked curiously.

Oh, all night, said the john. And she danced like — it was the finest sight in the world.

Domino smiled. — And it was. That’s how I dance. When I dance.

So she had a good time?

She said she did. I think she was happy.

Hey, Dennis! whined the blonde. When are you gonna take me home? I need some man to take me home. I’m feeling kind of fucked up…

Let me finish my drink first, said the john. Then I’ll take you wherever.

No! shouted the whore. I will not wait for you to finish your drink, you stupid old misogynist! Fuck you and go to hell! Go to hell! Go to… oh, I, I, I’m going to be sick…

Loreena, we’re going to need some napkins, said Tyler.

Well well well, said the barmaid. Domino’s puking on my bar, so it must be eleven-o’clock. You can practically set a clock by Domino’s… Oh, look at that. Oh, Jesus.

And after the dance she—

Take her home, Dennis, said the barmaid.

Domino? Domino, where you stayin’ at, sweetheart?

At my — at the — Maj… the girl croaked.

At your what?

I know where she wants to go, said Tyler. I’ll take her.

No! You don’t even like me! You just… Oh, what’s the point?

All right, fine, you can take her, the john said. But don’t be takin’ advantage of her when she’s messed up like that. It’s not a righteous thing to do.

Wipe your mouth off a little bit, Domino, said Tyler. Can you walk?

I lost one of my heels.

That’s all right, he said. The car’s right across the street.

I said, I lost my goddamned high heel.

So what do you want? he said wearily. I know. You want me to buy you new high heels.

That’ll work…

Fine. Now get in the car.

Thanks for being such a gentleman, the blonde muttered drunkenly.

Just lie down in the back seat. Don’t be afraid of me.

I’m not afraid. I love you, Henry. You’re the only one who’s nice to me.

Thank you, sweetie.

Dennis is just an asshole. And I hate Loreena’s guts.

I get it, said Tyler, blinking his eyes.

I said you’re the only goddamned one who’s ever been nice to me. The only one in the whole goddamned world. You want me to suck your dick?

Never mind.

I want to suck your dick. What’s the matter, cocksucker, you think just because you have a car and I don’t you’re any better than I am? Why, I don’t give a fuck about you and your car! I should kick all your goddamned windows out! I… Oh, Henry, please, I’m going to be sick… Please make it stop.

It’s all right, Domino. It’ll stop soon. You’ll feel better soon.

I’m sorry. Where are we? I lost my goddamned high heel but you promised me you’d buy me another one. I’m gonna hold you to it.

You want to go to the hospital?

Forget it.

Is it true what Loreena said, that you’re puking every day?

Go to hell.

Domino, I’m worried about you. And Dennis and Loreena care about you, too. And the Queen—

Oh, those fuckers…

He got onto the freeway at Ninth and Harrison, billboards looming white and yellow, proclamations of spurious choice against the foggy sky, the city in its real life not a choice at all, the grim-glowing girder-blades of the Bay Bridge squatting over him.

Henry? said Domino.

What is it, sweetheart?

Henry, I’m sorry I puked all over your car. And I’m sorry I was nasty to you.

Never mind, he said. No harm done.

Henry, would it be all right if I went to sleep now?

Sure it would.

Henry?

What?

I don’t want to go back to the Queen tonight. I hate the Queen.

I know.

Where are we going?

Oakland.

Where in Oakland?

To the Queen.

The car reeked of vomit. He thought of Luther’s strange doctrine that sin resides in the flesh, not in the conscience, because law has power only over flesh, not conscience. Her puke was corrupt, but not her, never her.

Henry, I’m sorry I lost my shoe.

All right, he said. Now let me drive.

By the time he reached the secret place among the derricks and cranes of West Oakland where the Queen was sleeping that night, Domino was stuporously snoring. The tall man came out of the shadows to claim her, laughing at the stench. — Lemme get this drunken bitch out of this faggoty car, he said. — He carried her off in his arms, then came back to Tyler and said: Queen wants me to tell you you been righteous. You one of the good kind.

Thanks, Justin, said Tyler.

You want to stay here, I’ll watch your car. Or if you don’t trust me you can sleep in your car.

Looking into the tall man’s eyes, he remembered strangely from his boyhood the old trestle bridge between East and West Sacramento where you could stand on the ties, look down between your feet and see the shimmering green-brown water. If you wanted to, you could jump and maybe just thrill yourself or maybe kill yourself. He liked but was sometimes afraid of the tall man.

Sure, he said. I trust you.

And so the tall man led him inside the old meatpacking plant with its eternal snowdrifts of broken glass and its piss-reeking recesses which locally overpowered the atmosphere of dust, moldy lard and bankruptcy as impure as Tyler’s motives used to be for accompanying Irene and John to some stupid John kind of movie; he’d go only in order to sit next to Irene, and somehow at the last minute John would end up between them. As his pupils expanded, he began to see a massive black woman whose steel earrings were almost as big as her head. He’d never met her before, and he’d never meet her again. He saw Beatrice (who was twitching in her sleep, dreaming of the cops), Chocolate, Strawberry, Martha, the crazy whore, Yellow Bird and the new girl, Bernadette. Why weren’t they out working? — Because their Queen, pitying them, had given them all magic medicine… He saw Lily, who was snoring sitting up, with drool running out of her mouth. He smelled Sunflower from a distance. (But Sunflower was dead, of course; it must have been someone else he smelled.) In the darkness loomed all the other whores ranked like the end-stacked white plastic chopsticks on Jones Street: skinny and quick, or fat and sullen, or vivaciously false like those ladies who lied with every word they said. All their faces were becoming now almost as familiar to him as the stench of urine on the streets of the Tenderloin.

This place always creeps me out, Strawberry was saying. Ever since I was a child…

Hush up, sweetie, said the Queen. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to you in here. You never been no child in here anyways…

Look what I found on Hyde Street, said Strawberry.

What? said Bernadette.

Well, this is a Royalbra. I wear a 42B.

I thought you was 38.

Well, not now. That was then. This is now.

So how’s it compare to them Sears an’ Roebuck bras?

I don’t like ’em any better than Sears. I don’t like that elastic strap.

Well, if you don’t like it I’ll take it. Does it have wires?

Yes it does.

Well, I hate bein’ wired. You keep it, Berry. Fuck them wires. I cut the wires, an’ they still dig in my ribs.

That’s why it takes so long to try on a bra.

Time’s what we got plenty of down here.

The tall man said: Henry Tyler.

The Queen said: Henry, I’m so glad. Henry, I’m gonna take care of you.

Evening, Maj, he said happily. But he couldn’t see her yet. It was too dark inside. She always sat back away from the door.

Back again! said Chocolate. Know why we’re not working tonight?

Lemme guess, said Tyler. Overdraft at the sperm bank.

You are disgusting! she laughed. No, it’s ’cause Sunflower—

The Queen was wearily silent.

Domino’s sick, he said to them all.

Remember in that other underground place I kept sayin’ there was somebody there? said Strawberry in that dreamy druggy voice. Like spirits or something? I miss the place, creeps and all.

Outside, the tall man was on one haunch, with his legs crossed, the bill of his cap practically stabbing into Domino’s sleeping face as he sat watching Tyler’s car. He muttered: See, I don’t even rate around here.

Mostly the Queen’s world was as slow as the Mexico of Beatrice, where homeless men lay on rice sacks on the sidewalk, their arms above their heads, and couples chatted in the hot dust beside stop signs, where the same fire engine with a broken windshield might sleep for months under the wide-streeted blocks of trees, and old sofas and chairs sat out in near-rainless yards. Strawberry told Chocolate the same story for the fifth time. Chocolate, pretending to listen, lay on a strip of foam rubber trying to screw up her courage to beg the Queen for an extra rock of crack even though she’d just had her turn. Beatrice, to whom the story was not directed at all, sat listening with her mouth open. Beatrice loved stories more than almost anyone. She stared into Strawberry’s face, gradually wiggling closer and closer until Chocolate wrinkled her nose because Beatrice smelled bad; but Strawberry, seeing that she had an audience, felt happy and proud enough to revamp her tale with mythic grandeur so beautiful that she herself believed it, and because Chocolate was not listening and Domino was out futilely peddling pussy to early afternoon drivers, nobody could spitefully deflate the story which thus emerged wet and new from its cocoon of facts and probabilities, becoming ever more beautiful until it finally fluttered overhead to shine like a luna moth on the ceiling of the abandoned warehouse until even Strawberry grew tired and realized at last that Chocolate was tired and then only Beatrice sat gazing at Strawberry longing for more in just the same way as Chocolate gazed at the Queen who opened heavy-lidded eyes, sighed, and crooked her finger at Chocolate who squirmed forward to receive her Queen’s saliva in her mouth; this substance, as I believe I have attested, possessed a narcotic and almost psychotropic effect; five minutes later the black woman was lying on her back, slowly licking her lips as her eyes happily glazed. It might be thought that this drug, being both free and moderately addictive, would have replaced cocaine or heroin or even meth in the whores’ list of staples, and indeed they did all partake, even Domino, not without a certain revulsion at their dependence upon another human being, but all of them except Sapphire knew that however much their Queen loved them, and they her, to remain with her all the time would have been stagnation, even death; and, indeed, her very secretions discouraged it; drink three times a day, and you were in heaven; six times, and you began to feel nauseous; ten times, and you vomited. So the whores were compelled to do as is foreordained for all, and go out into the world to live and to prowl. Where their Queen was, there grew sanctuary for every outcast, and even a little more, but not much more. How could there be? Where could Lord Cain rest forever, except in the tomb? This is not to imply that they could not be at least as contented as Irene lying under a blanket on the sofa next to John, watching romantic thriller videos which oozed soft piano music while she slowly got paler and sleepier until her eyes closed and her pale long fingers gripped the cushion, John frowning, half bored but unwilling now to turn it off before he learned how the plot turned out. Chocolate felt good; Beatrice felt good… Beyond Sapphire’s writhing fingers on bare knees, Sapphire’s wriggling toes speaking like the upraised beaks of hungry baby birds, the Queen sat in darkness, her thoughts gone southwest toward Beatrice’s country with its nested ranges of beautiful grey or maybe someplace even farther past greyish black mountain in rows upon yellow sand so far away, where her regal spirit could look down the swells and bulges of gravel-mountains to the blue and yellow horizon, where she might walk upon a salt lake as smooth and hazy as a dream — Beatrice’s Mexico or the desert Africa of her own enslaved ancestors? It didn’t matter. She was beyond reach, like the crazy whore, who muttered: I kinda had this fever of kleptomania… She was who she was, beyond expediency or even consequences, like Domino whose menstrual period hadn’t come and who kept feeling queasy, like beautiful black Chocolate with her scabs and scars who wore no underpants under her miniskirt, and, sitting down on somebody’s steps on Capp Street to negotiate with a john, would often spread her legs so that he could see the fuzzy darkness; then she reached in to scratch-scratch-scratch, the implied warning of verminous contagion negating her little advertisement.

Tyler’s visits gave them something to gossip about. — Here comes Henry, they said. He does that surveillance stuff.

Domino, however, rarely gossiped. She preferred solitude when she could get it, distrusting everybody in the world except for — provisionally — her Queen, who had never done her anything but good and whose evil she meticulously awaited. (There’s something so depressing about Dom, said Strawberry. She’s just like unhappy and unhealthy. Makes me want to stay away. — But she reminded Tyler of a brilliant, beautiful, unhappy girl he’d once known who wrote to him in a letter: Tomorrow I will wash my hair in rosewater and wear a yellow dress. I want to talk to you, just to hear your voice in this room. Your voice makes me think of oranges and sandalwood. Another time she wrote him: My dreams are only of one thing, and oh! my heart aches with you. He had wanted to be her one thing but he was too low and evil.)

At four in the morning the blonde’s aching head awoke her. For a moment she could not understand where she was. The stench of her own vomit there in Tyler’s car made her desperately nauseous, and she wanted a drink of water, so she opened the door and stumbled out, waking Justin, who literally opened only one bloodshot eye. But then it seemed that she had only dreamed she’d been in Tyler’s car, for she woke up a second time on the floor of the meatpacking plant, lovingly swaddled by someone in rags and old newspapers. A spider crawled in her hair, and she squashed it. It was still dark. Her head ached worse than ever. The other girls were snoring. Lying among them reminded her of her latest stint in jail (thirty days, just because she’d forgotten to report to her probation officer one lousy time. — In felony cases they get super cautious, her public defender had said with a shrug.) Fifty-eight inmates had been caged in the dorm, some of them girls she knew, and some girls she didn’t. Disliking television, she’d slept during the daytime and stared at the ceiling at night, craving just one dose of pure white junk. The same sensations which induce salivation in others who pass by the restaurant windows of Chinatown, where roasted chickens, roasted red crackly pork strips, orange roast ducks and drumsticks dark and crunchy, hang down above silver reservoirs of steamed vegetables and sweet ricebeds, affected Domino when her mind turned toward pure coke, crack coke (also known as white girl or bump), China white, coal tar, speedball, crystal blue persuasion, quaaludes, poppers, red speed, black speed, valium, thorazine, codeine, morphine, greenbud, indica weed, brandy and beer. In Chinatown some chickens are even smoked blue-black, like old India rubber balls, and in Dominotown one could likewise find specialty items, but the staple, the regular boiled chicken, so to speak, was crack — delicious, mind-clearing, happy-making, ephemeral crack, white, white, white as the sails on the pale blue Bay on Sundays, not that crummy yellow stuff which cheapskates had cut with cornstarch… In the dorm Domino felt so lonely for crack that she almost screamed. She felt widowed, starved, suffocated. Sometimes she masturbated beneath the scratchy blanket, less because she felt horny than because giving herself orgasms was the one nice thing that she could make happen. If other jailgirls saw what she was doing, they kept quiet about it, probably because they were doing it, too. Every night she heard the moans. The guards let them do it. They knew they could only push the girls so far. Domino bit her lip and glared straight upward when she climaxed. Then she did it again and again, until she got bored and sore. She kept hoping that Justin or someone would bring her five dollars so that she could buy some shampoo, but no one ever came.

At dawn she got up to beg the Queen for a fix and saw Tyler sleeping on the concrete. Scarcely knowing what she was saying, she muttered: That man’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me, kill me, kill me.

Oh, somebody’s awake, huh? said the Queen sleepily.

You know what I need, Maj.

Yeah, I know. C’mere. Come gimme a kiss…

Maj…

What?

Maj, I want you to fuck me.

All rightie, darling. Queen’s gonna… Oh, I’m so tired…

Sorry, Maj.

See, now you woke Sapphire. Give Sapphire a kiss, Dom. Give her a nice kiss. Okay. Now take her over an’ give her to Beatrice…

L-l-l-uh… trilled the idiot girl.

Sssh! said the Queen. Oh, now you done it. Now Strawberry’s awake, too. Come on upstairs with me, Dom. That’s where the rock is anyways. But you know you can’t keep shortin’ all the other girls on rock. You got to put back some of what you take.

Oh, bullshit, said the blonde angrily.

They went upstairs and the Queen yawned and said: Oh me oh my, am I tired. Okay, sweetie. Pull up your dress.

Maj?

What?

How do I know you really love me?

You don’t. Where’s my… all rightie, dear. Now bend over.

Maj?

You want to get laid or not? You sure got a lot of questions early in the morning.

I need a hit.

There you go.

Maj, it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? What you said about Sunflower.

I don’t bullshit, Domino.

You promise you won’t tell anybody?

Hey, you’re wastin’ that. Beatrice worked hard to earn that rock. Don’t let it…

The way you said she was like a saint and the best of us.

All right, bend over now, said the Queen, whose kiss was as delicate as the tiny droplets of mist on Tyler’s birdstreaked windshield as he sat on stakeout in the T.L. — And be quiet.

Please, Maj.

I promise I love you just as much as I ever loved Sunflower. Domino, I’m your Queen. I belong to you as long as you need me. I got to love you.

The others don’t like me, do they?

That’s your little cross to bear, ain’t it? Listen, Dom. Anytime you really want to, you can make friends. Inside that cussedness you’re such a good girl…

Maj, I — oh, I feel so sick.

That’s ’cause you’re pregnant, you silly silly girl. You got to go to the clinic an’ get aborted. You want me to tell Chocolate to take you?

Not that bitch. Who does she think she is? She always—

All rightie. I’ll tell Justin then.

Thank you, Maj. I appreciate it. But I have to tell you something about Chocolate. She—

Don’t be a tattletale, Dom.

Now I get it. I bet you’re really on her side. That’s how you’ve always been, Maj. But I’m not going to—

Lordy lordy day, the Queen muttered.

When the Queen and Domino came back downstairs, Henry Tyler was waiting. Domino brushed past him without a word and lay down again to sleep. Tyler knelt down and took the Queen’s hand.

What is it, Henry? she said, smiling in spite of herself.

Maj, he whispered in a low voice, what can I do to get over Irene?

Why do you want to do that?

Because it hurts so much.

Ah, said the Queen. You want to grab some of that happiness.

Yes,Ido…

She stroked his head. — You saw Sunflower. And I showed you Sunflower’s pain. I opened her up for you while she lay sleeping and showed it to you. And you still don’t understand.

Are you a lez? said Domino. I’m a lez.

No no no, said Beatrice.

Have you ever fantasized about being with a woman? said Domino. Have you been fucked? Have you ever been fucked?

The Queen says—

She’s trash, chuckled Domino, leaning her shiny teeth and shiny shiny eyes and shiny vinyl skirt over the cage. — It’s so boring, being Queen of the Whores. I’d rather be God.

I’m ’fraid, said Beatrice. I’m ’fraid of you.

But with the utmost tenderness, Domino lowered her pale, almost incorporeal face onto Beatrice’s; and out of habit and fear Beatrice submitted. Soon the two women were kissing each other, cheeks swallowed up in each other’s mouths, while behind them a big-breasted masturbator was screaming and kicking the cage.

I want you to keep your authority, Domino whispered to the heterosexual girl. But I want you to give me permission to… through your bra… let me touch your nipples very very softly.

And she kissed her. And she licked her mouth, licked her face.

You’re a sport! Domino laughed. You’ve earned my respect.

The Queen had picked up a new girl named Bernadette, a slender black lady who resembled a beautiful cat-devil. Domino felt attracted. She went to Bernadette and said: If somebody gave you a million dollars, what would you do?

What would I do? Shit! laughed the other woman lazily. Nobody gonna give me a mill. They’re all too cheap in this town.

Strawberry came running. — Hey, Domino, your date’s here!

Who is it?

That sixty-year-old bastard with the cuff links. That one you call the sonofabitch.

God, I hate him. I won’t go. I won’t go!

What’s he do?

He likes to stick his fist up me real violent-like and make me cry. For sixty bucks it’s not worth it. All right, tell him I’m coming. I hate that man. Goddamn him. Goddamn you. Goddamn all of you just sitting around on your asses waiting for a million dollar dick.

I tole you there ain’t no mill in this town, said Bernadette complacently. Hey, Domino, can I borrow your silver high heels tonight?

Oh, fuck off, said the blonde, grabbing her purse and running out.

Tyler called up his friend Jack Chin at the public defender’s office and asked him if he had ever heard about the Queen. — Sure, I’ve heard legends, laughed Chin. I mean, that stuff goes back — Christ, I mean, it predates DNA tests and rubber bullets. In fact, Henry, with all due respect, it’s probably an urban myth. Everybody loves to pin the rap on the Queen, but—

How about Sylvia Fine? Does that name mean anything to you?

You’re talkin’ about Domino, right? When she was in juvenile hall they used to call her Two Bits, I dunno why. Sure. Who works for the PD and doesn’t know Domino? That is one mean bitch, and I’m talkin’ about my client! Heh! If that bitch bought me a drink I’d check it out to make sure it wasn’t poisoned! Three pending cases, one involving stalking with a knife. I guess they’re just pals now. Oh, yeah. I got the acquittal…

And how about Brenda Wiley?

Brenda who?

Chocolate’s the street name. She—

There’s scores of Chocolates working in the Western Addition, I think I — anyway, what’s the point?

They both work with the Queen.

Look, Henry. This goes back to when the Tenderloin was boomin’. Street prostitution was — oh, man. And there was this vice cop who worked prostitution detail. He suddenly became kind of wealthy. In essence he was combin’ the Tenderloin to find the newbies, you know, the soft young chickies who’d just kinda fallen into the life. And he’d go up to them and say: I can protect you. I have a place. And he did, too! Had his own house, up in Pacific Heights, I think it was. Well, finally one of them turned on him. But the strange thing was, before it ever went to trial his heart just stopped even though he was a young guy in good shape. And all the girls kept talkin’ about the Queen, who’d waved her magic fuckin’ wand or whatever it was to punish him. Listen, Henry. It’s all bullshit.

Toward the end of that summer the police stepped up the vigor of their sweeps of Capp Street, which accordingly fell silent, and on those dark nights warmish like stale beer, the rattle of a trash can lid or the loom of a stuporous whore on somebody’s doorstep was a surprise, while a block away beneath the blonde streetlights of South Van Ness paced the girls in lavender leotards with clops like shoed horses. The Uptown Bar on Seventeenth and Capp had added new taps of microbrewed beers within the frosty nickel-plated organ pipes which readied themselves to play hymns upon that altar of alcohol. And just outside the Uptown, Bernadette was working.

Hey, the man said, have you seen Sunflower?

That’s funny that you should talk about Sunflower, because just the other day I was thinking about all the people who aren’t there, said Bernadette.

She smiled, and from one eye a tear so slowly came, and even more silently than the number fourteen bus whose white face shone like radium in the night as it eased past the Ritespot Cafe, that wetness traveled down her nose.

I used to date her, the man said. I was kind of looking for her.

What’s your name?

Bruce.

You want a date, honey? Maybe I can help you out?

Well, actually I was looking for Sunflower, he said. I feel something special for her.

You know, said Bernadette, Sunflower and I were good together.

Ah, said the man.

I actually feel very pretty today, said Bernadette.

So she’s not around? the man said.

I’m sorry, baby. You won’t see her around anymore.

What happened to her?

Overdose. I’d rather not talk about it.

Ah, the man said again.

So do you want a date or don’t you?

The man hesitated.

Come on, said Bernadette. I give really good head if that’s what you’re into.

How much?

Twenty.

Sunflower gave pretty good head for ten.

Well, honey, Sunflower’s dead so you gotta respect the living.

Slowly the man began to reach into his pocket. Bernadette’s heart now beat most gleefully, and according to her long since memorized stage directions she murmured: Listen, baby, if you pay me now and wait just five minutes while I go get well it’ll only cost you fifteen.

Oh, the man said. Well, all right.

He gave her a ten, four ones, and four quarters.

Bernadette ran so happily, vanishing so joyously into the night while the man sat against a wall. She looked back two blocks later and could dimly see him sitting. She laughed.

Justin, Justin, gimme a full dime bag! she commanded, thrusting the tenner into the tall man’s palm. He looked at her without joy or sorrow. Then he went around the corner and in a moment returned with the bag.

Hey, what’s this? This is no full bag.

Took the Queen’s commission, the tall man grunted. You know you owe her. And don’t get in my face about it. You lucky I was here. Look at you. Ran all the way back to lie down before that monkey hopped on your back. Looks like you just beat the monkey. Where is he now? He gnawin’ at your neck? You look like you’re gonna puke, so don’t you ever dare accuse me of gafflin’ you. Better go do your business, bitch.

You can take your commission but don’t call me bitch or I’ll tell the Queen.

He looked at her. — All right. I’m sorry, Bernadette, he said.

Somebody was asking about Sunflower, she said then.

Who?

I dunno. Some jerk.

Outside the Uptown the man sat, getting angrier and angrier. Bernadette was long gone, upstairs in her room with two fingers on her clit and a needle hanging from her ass.

Domino had done the same thing to Dan Smooth once. The next time she saw him, Smooth had only laughed and said: I don’t recognize your authority. — That was about the time he’d stopped sleeping with anybody over fifteen. Domino claimed that Smooth couldn’t get it up anyway…

Can I buy you a drink? the trick said, his face shady like Market Street with its glowing windows.

Sure, said Strawberry without looking at him. Misery loves company.

Which are you?

Excuse me?

Which are you — misery or company?

Oh, don’t play them games, mister, the whore said. If you’re that kind, you can just get lost. I’m tired.

Once when Strawberry was in jail she saw another girl eating candy, so she asked her for a piece but the other girl said: Get away! Go stand back away from me! and Strawberry felt angry and hurt but couldn’t show it because if she did then somebody would have preyed on her. But when she was negotiating with johns she could show whatever feelings flowed through her, or even make up feelings, because no one could hurt her in a public place and it was up to her whether or not to rent herself; she became the Queen.

Just then she saw the Mexican girl, and turned to her with relief, like a child who, losing the game of locked stares, pretends a physical need to blink. — Well, Beatrice! she cried. Where you been? All us girls been asking about you. And Maj, she—

I got an abscess on my titty, said Beatrice. They had to take me to the hospital to drain it. Mama knew all about it.

Well, she didn’t tell me.

Maybe you doan ask her, Beatrice thought to herself, but she only smiled and fanned herself with a piece of newspaper. — So what’s up with you? she said finally. You meet some nice friends? If you doan meet some nice friends soon maybe I can pray for you—

Oh, I need to make some money, Strawberry sighed. Domino owes me a rock and—

Me too! Me too! Because she gimme ten dollars but then—

The trick smiled shyly at her. — I like fat girls, he whispered.

She’s not fat, said Strawberry. She’s heavily challenged.

Beatrice screamed with laughter. Where Beatrice came from, they painted barber poles on the walls of barber shops. Fat, big-breasted beautiful women in blue shirts were proud of their own flesh. Beatrice remained proud of herself.

Well, he obviously likes you better, so why don’t you date him, said Strawberry. I’m tired. I think I’ll go on home. See you, guapa.

The trick moved two barstools closer. — Is she mad at me? he whispered.

I doan think so, Beatrice said. Doan worry about it, ’cause she has to go chase her nice friend. Where you from, baby? What’s your name?

I’m from Modesto and my name is, uh—

Oh, doan bother, said the fat whore. Why lie? I won’t complain. If you doan wanna tell me, then doan tell me. Mother Maria, it’s not my business. Hey, Strawberry, darling, please you stick around one minute.

You know what? said the trick.

What?

I don’t think I like your attitude.

Then fuck off, said Beatrice. Go kiss your Mama’s ass. Strawberry, sister, let’s go.

You goin’ out, too? said the other whore.

Of course.

What about him?

The hell with him. He doan like my attitude.

Strawberry laughed drunkenly and said: You wanna try Seventeenth and Capp with me, an’ maybe we can double date? It’s safer that way.

No, sweetie, I gotta meet one of my regulars. Because I met two friends, the nicest two friends, and I tell one I go only with him. And the other I tell I go only with him. And one nice friend, he even want me to come back in the morning to his hotel, and he gimme twenty, and the other paid me twenty last night and the first one gimme twenty last night and when I show Mama, she so happy. But the other one want to take photos of me naked, so I say, Okay, you can take my pussy, but you doan take my face. And Mama say why? I say ’cause I’m ugly, Mama. You know that. And she say, no, Beatrice. You’re not ugly. Here’s some makeup. And now I—

Okay. Well, you be careful, guapa.

You too, said Beatrice.

She stood with her hands on her generous hips, watching the other woman strolling into the darkness.

Across the street, a police light flashed and amplified robot voices went wrurr wrurr wrurr step out of the car. STEP OUT OF THE CAR. Turn around slowly and place your hands on the car. It was nobody she knew. Strawberry should really be getting out of here, but she could still see her dawdling at the first corner with cracked bravado, shooting looks and waves against the cars which she hoped to prey on and crack open like mussel-shells to suck out the sweet money-meat inside. No cars slowed. Place your hands on your head. Slowly. I said slowly.

Suddenly, Beatrice realized that the cops were busting Domino.

Weak and mechanical though such side-episodes may be, like the subplots in Shakespeare’s plays, the fact remains that reality does on occasion most slyly change the dials of our fate-settings, like Bernadette, who always liked to steal at least one thing from each of her tricks. So it had happened on that foggy twilight that when Domino was sitting in a station wagon with one of her regulars, a pasty-faced man whose name she’d long since forgotten and cared not to ask, and they were en route to the parking lot on Golden Gate where she always blew him, a black-and-white came up out of nowhere and pulled them over for expired plates. After that, things went from bad to worse. When the cop asked for the registration, the trick opened the glove compartment and a pistol fell out. Domino rolled her eyes and said: You asshole! — Both of you out of the car with your hands on your heads! said the cop. His partner started searching the car, and immediately found a bag of meth under the passenger seat. — It’s hers, the trick said desperately. I never knew anything about it, I swear, officer. — Well? said the cop. Which of you wants to own up? — Yeah, sure, and it’s my gun and my car and my penis, too, sneered the blonde. Why don’t you dust it for prints? — Oh, so you want to tell me how to do my job, huh? said the cop. You think I feel like wasting my fingerprint dust on your shitty little life? Who are you, lady? Let’s see some I.D. — May I take one hand off my head to get it, officer, or are you going to reach into my pants and get it? — My, my, my, said the cop cheerfully. You just resisted an officer. I’m going to have to write that into the arrest report. What’s your name? — Domino, said Domino. — The world-famous Domino, said the officer with mock awe. Aren’t you the cat’s pajamas? Is there any man in San Francisco who hasn’t gotten lapdanced by Domino? But I’ll tell you something, sweetie. That was in the last century. You need a new titty job. — Remind me not to go to the same doctor who did your dick job, officer. I bet you couldn’t get it up if it were strapped to a telephone pole.

It’s just not fair to bust me for her meth, inserted the trick. You see how she talks. It’s her meth, officer. Cut me some slack just this once, okay?

It went like that all the way to jail. But when the trick, sitting handcuffed in the back seat of the patrol car beside her, finally understood that his denials of methamphetamine possession would not change the stance of the arresting officers by a single iota, he turned toward Domino, who sat rigidly trembling and gazing out the window, and, clearing his throat with a noise as of a tired panhandler’s shuffle up a sidewalk, he whispered that he was sorry. Domino burst into tears and cried: I’m so ashamed of your life!

It used to be that when they busted Domino they merely cuffed her and maybe kicked her down onto her face once or twice if she’d given them lip or shown what they called “attitude”; then they took her to the Mission Street substation where after rephotographing her and adding a new entry to her sin sheets they drove her to Eight-Fifty Bryant, formally known as the Hall of Justice, where in a windowless little room which offered a sometimes-broken television and a sometimes-broken toilet she joined her sisters sitting on benches, all of them searched and half stripped, their high heels confiscated because not long ago in that room, so the story went (nobody Domino knew had actually witnessed it), one prostitute, angered by another, had killed her with a spike heel; and there Domino sat until they let her out. But this time she faced no mere misdemeanor charge of prostitution, which usually meant a quick release on her own recognizance, but felony drug and gun possession charges, as well as interwoven complications and disgraces — to wit, five thousand dollars bail for the weapons charge, ten thousand for the meth, ten thousand for being the principal in a narcotic sales case while knowing that another principal was armed, five hundred for resisting an officer in the performance of his duties, twenty thousand for a prior serious felony (she actually had two on her record but they’d luckily forgotten the other one), ten thousand for a prison prior when she’d been compelled to defend her honor against a woman who’d called her nigger-sucker, and so she stole a spoon from the cafeteria and slammed it into that bitch’s eye — all of which came to a fifty-five point five grand price of readmission to the luminous Tenderloin streets for something she hadn’t even done. Life is crappy, she said to herself.

And so she made landfall upon the grey squarish isle of the Hall of Justice, and they took her upstairs to the jail, where they made her sign the white SFPD property release form. She didn’t want to check the box which emunerated her “TOTAL” cash because she was sure that she’d had much more money than that, but she lost that argument, as she had known she would, because they were stronger than she was and they didn’t care. — My shitty fuckin’ life, she muttered. She heard the public defender mumuring into a man’s ear: If they can make the actual constructive claim, then the misdemeanor goes to superior court trailing the felony and then… — Ahead of her waited the judge who always said to her public defender just like a used car salesman: I’ll give you a very early pretrial tomorrow. — The public defender warned her: Sylvia, you gotta beat every count if you wanna escape the Three Strikes Law. — They said she could make one phone call. Domino wanted to telephone Dan Smooth, but they said that it had to be local. There was a rich doctor from Marin who sometimes dated her in his own house while his wife masturbated in the corner (the doctor’s pride: amyl nitrate sequences with Domino, the wife’s silver body moving back and forth), but his phone merely rang and rang. So Domino called Mr. Cortez the bail bondsman.

The saving grace of our justice system is that remarkable axiom, innocent until proven guilty. Be that as it may, each accused must place his head in the lion’s mouth. For not every axiom is honored, not every proof is infallible — and not all defendants are innocent. What will the judgment be? Yesterday, a man pursued his good or evil life. Today he stands inscribed in the master calendar of felonies. And tomorrow’s destiny refuses to announce itself. The sign reads: SILENCE: COURT IN SESSION. Thus authority reduces us to things, and how could matters be otherwise? A greyhaired, slender defendant, sitting beside me as he awaits his turn, whirls insanely round in his chair as if something bit him. Granted, he keeps obediently silent; chewing his lip, he struggles to sit still, but only a moment goes by before his demon, premonition of the lion’s mouth, gnaws at him again, and he quivers. Meanwhile, a hulking, bandaged, cornrowed defendant approaches the bench with his hands locked behind his back. He’s been named; he’s Line Twenty-Four. Should he refuse to offer his head to the gaping mouth, then certain fellow citizens, armed and numerous, will force him. But by our axiom, Leo may not bite in advance of a guilty verdict. Fairness, then — to say nothing of kindness — advises that the defendant’s freedom be provisionally restored, on condition that he not run away from the lion. Hold his collateral, then. Should he flee, it will be forfeit. What if, fearing the verdict, he prefers freedom to property of which his sentence might in any event deprive him? No worry — raise the stakes! Then he’ll require help from those who love him, which produces the ingenious result of holding his companions hostage for his good behavior. Unless he’s a monster, instinct will be deterred by the knowledge that should he vanish, his sister will lose her house, while the lion in any case hunts him. And that is why the whirling man and the hulking, cornrowed man sat beside me in the courtroom, waiting for their names to be called. They were not wearing the orange livery of unfreedom; they came in their street clothes. They might as well come. — We get ninety-six percent of all skippers, a bail bondsman in Spokane once boasted to me, with a tight smile. And I suspect that Domino was all too familiar with that statistic.

In our republic, collateral cannot be paid except in good hard money. (The felony bail schedule reads: CASH, SURETY BONDS, VISA OR MASTERCARD. NO PERSONAL CHECKS.) Why this is I cannot fathom. A deed of trust means even less to a court clerk than a defendant’s fate. Well, couldn’t there be an appraisal office for the former as there is for the latter? The state of California seems perfectly able to staff such establishments in order to tax my house. Never mind. Who, then, will accept the surety of a cashless soul? Not the judge, I assure you; nor the happy lawyers with their suitcoats off, neckties fluttering in the breeze, who sometimes may be seen carrying bag lunches, nor yet the cops whose doubleparked police cars rest as immune to meter maids as most cops themselves are to bribery. And so the accused, or, more likely, since he’s at this moment sitting upstairs in a cell, the friends of the accused, descend the Hall of Justice’s steps on which other lion’s-prey smoke cigarettes while keeping to themselves or else glaring nervously everywhere like that whirling man in court, and then the friends (what nice friends!) turn to the slow orange blinking of the BAIL OPEN sign for Barrish Bail Bonds, or to any of the other signals of rescue in that casino-like strip which more or less begins by the Inn Justice Bar & Hofbrau with Dad’s Bail Bonds, and Cable Car Bail Bonds, whose office resembles a fast food restaurant and whose motto reads: “WE NEVER SLEEP”—LOW RATES. Next comes De Soto Bail Bonds, followed by Al Graf Bail Bonds, an establishment which figures in this sketch, then the aforementioned Barrish, Ballestrasse (OPEN 24 HOURS), Puccinelli; and at right angles to all these, in the alley behind Cable Car Bail Bonds, my vision descries Curtis Howard, O’Reilly’s, McKenzie Green, Hutch and Hutch, King, De Cortez and then Sheila Lockett, who very pleasantly said when I rang her bell: No, I can’t help you; I’m sorry…

Thus that miniature Las Vegas where many an accused hits the jackpot of sunlight and kisses. But is this treasure imperishable American bullion, or fool’s gold? Bail can be revoked, you know.* On the other hand, some lucky souls’ cases get dismissed within days, and then sunlight endures unto death or the next arrest. Regardless, Judgment Day comes for all. Angels inscribe a name on one of the daily computer printouts affixed to the marble walls of the Hall of Justice — time to report to the lion, time for district attorney and public defender to gamble over the gambler’s fate. But up to that moment he’s free within due limits to spend the life he’s won — provided only (as I said) that his well-wishers can offer deeds of trust, stock certificates, or good safe municipal bonds.

That bail bondsman I met in Spokane didn’t mind accepting videocasette recorders or cameras as collateral. (What did he think, when somebody brought in two dozen television sets? Where had those televisions come from?) — In San Francisco it seems more difficult to meet with such catholic receivers. One can easily try, of course, for it was explained to me by ancient Al Graf, retired owner of the aforesaid Al Graf Bail Bonds, that each bondsman specializes in a very particular subspecies of client, just as each creed has its god, and each parasite its host. Somebody somewhere will take television sets. Why not try? Freedom Casino lies so conveniently situated right across from the lion’s mouth! — When you win in Vegas your slot machine says BAR BAR BAR. But for the lion-bound winners, all bars shall be sprung. A blood-vermillion sign blinks in a bondsman’s window.

Am I free to go? asks the defendant.

Yeah, you’ve got bail set, the judge replies.

I got bailed! he crows, rolling away in his wheelchair.

The judge sighs and sets a new trial date.

How much do you love me? — Easy to find out. I’ll beseech of you my resurrection. Then I’ll wait.

Ah, but how much will the ransom be? Well, how much should it be?

Gaunt, bald and overworked Ron Albers, one of the felony supervisors at the public defender’s office, tried to be civil, but the more questions I put, the more convinced he grew that I was a fool. To him, life came case by case, like the row of bail establishments each with its own policies; generalization equalled vacuity. I wanted to know whether he thought that the bail system was fair, and such inquiries exasperated him.

Fine, he said staccatto. Take possession of drugs. What’s an appropriate bail?

Well, I began, in relation to a violent crime—

No, he said. Tell me a number.

All right, a thousand dollars.

He shrugged and said (another verbal lunge): Fine. A thousand dollars. How about possession for sale?

Ten thousand.

Fine, he said challengingly. Ten thousand dollars. How about possession with conspiracy to sell?

Twice as much.

Okay, so that’s your system, said Albers a little contemptuously, and maybe it works for you. But nobody agrees, you see. Bail for the same crime varies wildly from county to county.

He was correct, and one need not compare the legal apples of San Francisco with the legal oranges of Sacramento to be unnerved by eccentric discrepancies. What were San Francisco’s judges thinking of, when they set bail for assault with attempt to rape at twenty thousand dollars — the same number as for rape itself? Leniency ought to be the watchword for an uncompleted crime, no matter what reason the ellipsis. Just as Dante’s hell contains circles of graduated misery, so should the bail system. That anomaly, the radiantly rational criminal, ought always to be reminded that no matter what he’s done, he’d be better off not doing worse. Fine, as Ron Albers would have said. Assault with or without penetration, with or without disease and escalated shame: Twenty grand. Fine. Meanwhile, kidnapping for purposes of rape became bailable at fifty thousand dollars. I suppose that carrying off one’s prey is more terrifying than laying hands on her where one finds her, but a courteous kidnapping might be preferable to a bloody assault (granted, the blood might comprise a separately bailable offense, but in that case what meaning remains to the word “assault”?). Vanilla kidnapping got bailed at five thousand dollars more than kidnapping for rape, I’ll never comprehend why; and the bail for rape-less assault varied between five and fifty thousand (but take heart, O you suffocating students of logic! We can, do and will, as bureaucrats say, “prioritize”—for it costs precisely three times as much to be suspected of attacking a fireman as to be accused of harming a bus driver. What would they bail me at, if I shattered their legal tablets?). Sexual battery (which essentially means fondling) was only ten thousand—fine, reasonable actually, proportionately Dantesque — but then incest had been priced at twenty-five thousand. If a brother and sister happily went to bed together and then a cousin called the cops, must their amusements necessarily be considered more terrible than ravishment by a monster? Where was the sense of it? And so to me the words on the San Francisco bail schedule — to say nothing of the fees — began to seem like careless and transitory exhalations.

The bitter truth of Ron Albers’s Fine was that in law there was no truth. Sometimes I’ve wished that every crime could be addressed by a single statute, perfectly drafted.* So it used to be: An eye for an eye. But what if I put out my brother’s eye by mistake? What if I did it in wartime, or slyly paid Domino to do it? And so the dust of confusions and exceptions dulled the glitter of the ancient, perfect laws. In their place, we learned to fire multiple laws out of justice’s shotgun, hoping that if one pellet didn’t bring down the criminal, maybe the next one would. Al Capone deserved to go to prison for his numerous murders and thuggeries, and so he did go — but for tax evasion. That was the pellet that got him. The district attorney takes aim and files charges—fires them, I should say — determined to prove his case. He fires multiple shots whenever he can, and each shot spreads constellations of leaden legal pellets. And the more charges stick, the more weighed down becomes the defendant by crushing bail.

This science is as easy as it is repulsive. An example: In Department Twenty-Two I heard a prosecutor insistently arguing: This was a case of GBI (great bodily injury) with use of a knife. The bail was only five thousand, which does not reflect the seriousness of the case!

When I got home I searched the felony bail schedule for San Francisco County and found:

PENAL CODE FELONY 245(a)(I) Assault (great bodily injury) BAIL $5,000

Indeed, if I meant to box in this suspected stabber (as a prosecutor must do), I might insist and argue against ordinary GBI in that same rising voice, for the bail bondsman’s ten percent weighs but five hundred dollars here. Very likely, the accused or his friends could support such a burden. So quick! Load the shotgun! On that very same page I found sweet mayhem. Somebody, possibly our defendant, has superficially cut the victim about the face, and in the process nicked off an infinitesimal portion of an earlobe. Thus mayhem, which is mutilation and bails at twenty grand. (Aggravated mayhem can go for more.) Were I the D.A., why not fire that one off?

This procedure being not only expedient, but also self-exculpatory, it gets applied at all levels. The defendant gets his day in court, and directly or through agents pleads his righteousness. The prosecutor (whose name is Legion, because he gets to call himself the people*) does the same. And the uniformed vice-hunters in their rolling black-and-whites, don’t they also want to justify themselves? When they take somebody in, it’s only human nature for them to show cause. Why not triply show it? — When you’re arrested, said Ron Albers, the person making the charge is the police officer. If he likes you, it’s possession. If not, it’s possession for sale. I think there’s no limit to the number of charges he can make. Let’s say you happen to be a person passing a bad check. They can charge you with uttering a bad check plus conspiracy to defraud plus possession of counterfeiting tools or whatever. Or you walk into Safeway and you want to steal a loaf of bread. Well, that’s petty theft, but entering the premises for purposes of petty theft can be burglary, and it becomes violent robbery if the security guard tries to stop you and you pull your arm away.

Needless to say, each new charge augments the bail bondsman’s ten percent. When the Salem witchcraft trials were in full flourish, they arrested a man named Giles Corey, who to save his estate would not plead innocent or guilty, so the magistrates in their wisdom directed that he be laid down upon his back in a dark room and slowly crushed to death with weights. Doubtless, many of the Giles Coreys whom we press with the less reprehensible weight of bail actually did the deed, and deserve to remain in the dark room for the duration. But remember the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

Thus the first flaw of bail, its absolute arbitrariness. (As a smart young lawyer once told me: The criminal justice system is an ad hoc system. It’s not logical.) The second flaw is its relative arbitrariness. How brittle is each Giles Corey’s ribcage? Does any given sum of bail weigh the same to me as to you? — We had one guy who was faced with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars bail, Ron Albers said. The charges were very serious. What the person did, I don’t have to get into that. But bail could have been set at a hundred thousand; it wouldn’t have made any difference. He couldn’t have gotten out of jail. But another guy with a hundred-thousand-dollar bail did get out. He had enough resources to pay for an attorney to boot. Those were serious sexual assault charges. And some of the guys you saw in Department Twenty-Two today had bail set for five thousand dollars or less. They didn’t have the five thousand on their credit cards, and they didn’t have the five hundred plus collateral for the bail bondsman. So they’re sitting in jail.

In the elevator at Five Fifty-Five Seventh Street, I met a lady who often represented street prostitutes. The elevator was slow, so I inquired of her how often those types were able to make bail. — Almost never, she replied. — And a bargirl friend of mine whom I’ve visited in jail more than once (let’s call her Strawberry), assured me: I’ve never had bail in my life. And I don’t get a trial anymore either. It’s all parole violation.* They take me and lock me up. You shouldn’t be writing about bail. That’s irrelevant. You should tell people about what goes on in jail. What they like to do is beat you when you’re in the elevator, when they’re taking you up to your cell.

This being a novel, we need not sorrow over wretches such as Strawberry, who don’t even exist — I made her up out of three sad women I know — and the sad woman who alluded to the beatings she got was also quite practiced in weeping over her dead baby and then hitting me up for money; so let’s suppose that she never was beaten (although one time, and here I write not as a novelist but as a witness, I saw two policemen enter the back door of the place which we’ll call the Wonderbar, and march her into their squad car because she’d violated her parole again — which is to say, because she’d been sitting quietly at the Wonderbar — and when I strolled out to watch them and see if I could do anything to help Strawberry I saw one cop at the wheel while the other cop was sitting in the back seat beside Strawberry, whose head he now began to drag down into his lap.

Fifteen minutes later, she was back at the bar, dully pretending that nothing had happened.) Let’s suppose that our prisons tower uncorrupted by jailers’ violence, because that’s a pleasanter supposition, and, besides, the rottenness or purity of prisons may affect but cannot alter the fundamental stinking crookedness of bail, which is the crookedness of life. Let’s even suppose that Strawberry some red-shining evening (oh, ecstasy!) found herself legally eligible for bail. What then? Ask Mr. Roger Adair at Ace Bail Bonds in Sacramento. He is a clever, pleasant, practical man. He answers all questions. He says: If you’ve got a Six Forty-Seven case we don’t even deal with you. Six Forty-Seven is prostitution. If there’s even loitering involved, we won’t do it. We get such a small amount of money, and the hassle’s just not worth it. The meat and potatoes of what we do are domestic violence and methamphetamines.

Unlike birth, bail may occur at practically any phase of gestation within the lion’s barred womb — or, as Strawberry knows, it may never happen at all. (When a full-term defendant does get delivered, the prosecution may well consider it a miscarriage of justice. But never mind.) Arrest is conception; that’s when one’s implanted in the pit. But because most arrests are warrantless, the pregnancy’s not yet “in the system” until the second step when the defendant gets “processed”—that is, fingerprinted and otherwise inspected, recorded and made recognizable to the lion’s gaze. I have heard prostitutes protesting and even wisecracking with their arresting officers as they roll off to jail, but “processing,” like the sign which commands SILENCE: COURT IN SESSION, strips them of public entreaties, accusations, outcries. They’re in the cage now. — You can be bailed as soon as you’ve been processed, a public defender explained to me. Generally they want to get you out if they can. — And, of course, if the defendant can. Does he have the cash? There he is, upstairs in a cell with strangers who might be violent. (My friend B. told me how afraid he was of his new brothers on that long afternoon after arrest. He wasn’t sure whether to be friendly or inconspicuous.) But who knows? Maybe freedom’s jackpot will bust him out here and now. Should the accusation against him be sufficiently trivial, he’ll be cited to appear at a later date. This is what happened to B. Somebody came, some official somebody who owned the authority to decide that B. was too young and innocuous to lie in jail that night, and so B. staggered back into freedom’s twilight without paying a penny, released on his own recognizance, or O.R.’d as they call it. He has never been back in jail since.

Whether our defendant gets out or not, gestation now continues to the third step — namely, arraignment in court. Bail grows even more volatile here, like a feather dancing in the breath of a judge. One detainee’s five-thousand-dollar mistake is another’s twenty-thousand-dollar crime. A D.A. up in Sacramento spoke to me of a push to limit the number of people who review these things so we get more uniformity. (I myself would simply prefer a more uniform code of bail.) Arraignment must take place within forty-eight hours of arrest, and the defendant must be present. Bailed people thus do not entirely resemble cancer patients in blissful remission. How can they pretend it’s over? They must return to the lion’s jaws again and again. For a simple misdemeanor matter, the accused makes at least three appearances. For a felony, the minimum is five. — Felony cases may meander through many, many pretrial conferences. (With time, everybody relaxes, said a San Francisco public defender named Matt Gonzalez. It’s like, can we work a deal? But I have cases where a guy has appeared fifteen or twenty times. Ageing the case, they call it.)

Up to thirty days after arraignment comes the pretrial hearing, at which the judge either dismisses the charges or else sends them on for trial. Has the defendant made bail yet? If not, and if they won’t O.R. him, then, innocent or guilty, he’ll keep sitting in a cell. (Gonzalez again: In a felony case you can spend three months in jail and three more months waiting for a speedy trial, although that’s the worst scenario.*) He’s likely lost his job by now, if he had one. He’s not paying rent. Innocent until proven guilty, we said, but think about that rent. Think about those sinister nights of decay. And do you remember those three minimum appearances for a misdemeanor? How about making just one? Plead guilty, and it’s over. Remember those five felony appearances? If you can’t bring yourself to plead guilty, at least agree to drug counseling — that’s almost as good as admitting you’re wrong! The prosecutor will like you better, too. By thus validating your own arrest, you’ve proved him wise and righteous.

Well, the system is a little vindictive, Gonzalez agreed. It’s hard to dismiss a flawed case. Once you get wrapped up in the system, nobody wants to admit an error. And sometimes the system is just plain schizophrenic. For instance, take Department Eighteen. That’s misdemeanor domestic violence. If you plead not guilty, you can’t be released because you are deemed to be a threat to public safety. Bail’s generally set. If you plead guilty, you will probably be released immediately with a promise to attend counseling, even if you haven’t attended counseling before and you haven’t even seen a probation officer. By allowing that second option, aren’t we really saying, hey, we could really O.R. all these people? You’re innocent until proven guilty. The public safety thing is illusory.

A woman in an orange jumpsuit rubs her big, bewildered eyes. Her lawyer, a lady in tweed, lays a hand upon her arm. The woman in orange is led before the judge, expecting destiny, only to be told by the people: The deputy D.A. is on vacation and I don’t think he’s coming back until next month. — The woman does not understand. The people’s representative frowns at her and shakes her head. The accused felon clears her throat, craving to learn what will happen next, but she’s gently led toward the exit at stage left. The bailiff rattles his keys. He unlocks the door, which she enters, becoming a prisoner again, for how long nobody yet knows. But why on earth does she have a right to know? She’s but a detainee, poor and shadowy, like one of those Egyptians in the Book of Isaiah who find themselves forsaken by their idols. And I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master; and a fierce king will rule over them.† She cannot be proven guilty until next month at the earliest. Might she live her life until then? Might she descend those whitestone steps of the Hall of Justice, cross Byrant Street, and then wander home with the sun warming her pallid skin? It depends on the vagaries of bail.

I do think that it’s necessary for the system to make every effort possible to see that people are not unnecessarily inconvenienced, said Albert Locher, that supervisory deputy district attorney in Sacramento. — At the same time, he went on, the presumption of innocence is a presumption that attaches to a specific part of the proceedings, which is the trial process. But there are other parts of the process. Bail reflects not only the strength of the case but also the degree of danger. If you have a guy videotaped in an armed robbery with his fingerprints on the counter and the gun in his possession, you’re not going to find me or many other people wanting to let that guy out.

And so the presumed robber does not get out, and I’m with the people on that one; I’m not sorry. But the big-eyed woman in orange does not get out, either. Right or wrong, who’s to say? I don’t know her. But what does innocent until proven guilty mean to you?

The interminable pregnancy of justice continues. If a trial seems warranted, then the accused must stand for his second arraignment. There follows the trial itself, then the verdict, and then the sentencing. Another portion of somebody’s lifetime, converted into excrement, gets flushed down the toilet of a cell.

And now for the straight stuff, the vulgar poop: What impels the bondsman’s kindness? We said ten percent before, but did you truly lull yourself into equating simplicity with truth? — We’re supposed to charge a flat ten percent. — Thus Geri Campana, former flight attendant and school teacher, current owner-agent of Al Graf Bail Bonds. This friendly and cheerful Japanese-American woman had entered the business because her husband, a retired police officer now deceased, had suffered from back problems. A desk job being practical under such circumstances, they bought the business from Al.

In churches one sees altars, in low-class jungle whorehouses one finds girlie posters taped to the bamboo walls, and in bail-bonds establishments one discovers emblems of conformity with legal authority. Al Graf’s, for instance, sported the insigniae of the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, the National Rifle Association, and even the American Gunsmiths’ Association, a worthy organization whose skills remain of use to shooters of all ethical persuasions. At Al Graf’s there stretched a glasstopped wooden counter with a couple of stools behind it where the bondsmen sat. This barrier reminded me of the discreet little walls and reefs in topless clubs, cliffs to keep excited clients away. Every bondsman I’ve ever talked to says that the customers are friendly beyond the point of regularity; but aren’t we allowed to imagine odd times when some ghost without collateral blows in, and, his demands unsatisfied, decides to haunt the place? They say that Leon Padilla, the Sacramento “bail bonds king,” has survived four murder attempts — but some or all of those might have come from rival bondsmen. Didn’t anybody at Al Graf’s keep a box of silver bullets behind that counter, just in case? — Mrs. Campana was so kind to me that I thought her capable of exorcising all monsters with her sweetness. (Actually, they’re all very nice, she said. Each defendant is very grateful. We get along very well on the street.) And Roger Adair said: We have a good idea what they’re about. If we have a bad feeling, we’ll just say we’re sorry, we’re unable to write this bond for you. There are plenty of other bondsmen in the phone book. They might give you a little huff and grief about not wanting to help ’em but that’s just a part of the business. It is very natural in life to want to make a profit, be it financial or otherwise — don’t honeybees profit when they build up a store of metabolized nectar? When one profits from other people’s desperation (which I as a journalist occasionally do), one may well be lubricating evil’s tracks. — But must that be? Why should Mrs. Campana put herself at financial risk for the sake of every accused stranger’s freedom? Doesn’t she deserve to flourish? Aren’t her customers pleased to escape or postpone their living death?

Do you ever feel that bail costs too much? I asked her.

Some families, she replied, well, they go overboard, which I think is wrong. They offer up what they can’t afford. We don’t wanna go after them for the money. If the guy skips, they would be hurt just as hard as we would be. We’re here to protect their interest as the indemnitor. So anybody who skips, we try to coax them back into the system. We take the friendly approach. I’ll call them and they’ll be like, oh, my God, I’ve blown it. What do I do now?

(And Roger Adair said: Maybe five or ten percent are knuckleheads at most. People call and say, whoops, my car broke down. Yeah, right. And most of the skips, we get ’em cleared up before anything bad happens. Only two to three percent actually run, and we have our own bounty hunter.)

When we take ‘em out of jail, said Al Graf, ninety-eight percent show up for trial. (Al, as his business card said, was the original “BONDSMAN WITH A HEART” and on that lemon-yellow card his telephone number had been inscribed in a ruby red heart.)

Mrs. Campana explicated: If they do not show up, they come back and request to get back on the calendar. We’ve collateralized their bail, so…

I asked Matt Gonzalez: Would you say that bail bondsmen perform a service or would you call them vultures?

I would think more on the service side.* However, what’s their risk?

Well, Al Graf told me that ninety-eight percent of his clients don’t skip.

He would know. In that case, maybe ten percent is a little steep.

Reader, I repeat: How can one not wish upon every bail bondsman, as upon every other soul, riches? (I keep seeing more and more new bail bonds businesses across from the courthouse, said the bail commissioner. I have never seen one fail.) But I would prefer it if their services were more democratically bestowed. As I write this, I can see before me Strawberry’s sad and drunken face.

The public defender Daro Inouye told me that ninety-four percent of his clients were incarcerated simply because they could not make bail. When I first heard this, I couldn’t believe it.* I would have believed ten percent, or even thirty, but not almost all of them. Inouye went on to say that in the old days far more people were bailed. I asked what had happened. — This is one of the great mysteries, he laughed, spreading his arms.

But it’s far more expensive to incarcerate them all! I said.

Absolutely. Absolutely. But pretrial detention just points out the difference between rich and poor. And look. If you have x amount of people in the county jail, so the county gets sued by the feds for overcrowding, what’s going to happen? A new jail! The greatest thing in this state used to be the California higher education master plan. Three years ago, the amount we spent on education was for the first time surpassed by the amount spent on prisons. You build a prison, you have to fill it or they close you down… If I were a wealthy man, I’d invest in geriatrics. The biggest old-age facilities will be in prisons. The whole concept is fear. Build a prison and they will come.

I thought for a while, then said: Why not create a state fund to pay for the supervision of poor people who can’t bail? Pay for ankle bracelets or bounty hunters or something. That’s got to be cheaper and kinder than letting them sit in jail.

Lemme tell you, said Inouye a little vaguely. This has been tossed around in many jurisdictions as an adjunct to the O.R. And we do have an O.R. Project in San Francisco…

Why don’t defendants get O.R.’d more often, aside from the financial incentive to fill prisons?

Well, a judge might hesitate to O.R. a suspect because if he committed any crimes while he was out, the judge’s enemies would have ammunition against him in his next reelection campaign. Moreover, bondsmen sometimes support judges in their election campaigns. — He chuckled and then said: A judge who O.R.s people who’d otherwise be paying bail bondsmen might be less than popular!

Needless to say, the bondsmen express divergent views. Roger Adair, for instance, said: Your idea of a fund sounds nice in principle, but when it came out to the time and money actually needed, I don’t think it would be there.

I knew that Adair was right, because it’s not so popular to spend money on poor people.

And lemme tell you something about the skip rate on O.R., he went on. To be honest with you, they’ve got over ninety-five thousand active bench warrants in Sacramento city and county. Only three hundred and forty-two of those are for people out on bail.†

That’s why I don’t recommend any kind of O.R. program. What’s more, we bail bondsmen with our own bounty hunters do go out and find our own people at our expense, so we save the taxpayers’ money.

If you extrapolate that out, laughed Daro in response, leaning back in the dark at the Inn Justice bar, his white shirt perfect against his white hair and handsome, florid face, well, that means those people never got in trouble again, since the system hasn’t found them, right? So they haven’t had an encounter with the law for seven years! So O.R. works! he chuckled. That statistic means we should shut down the prison system!

In Sacramento there is no bail commissioner at all, and in San Francisco the sherriff’s office had never heard of round-bespectacled, dark-moustached Commissioner Lam, who on an average day played God thirty-five times, all aside from his job presiding over drug court. I called superior court, where the clerks asked one another in bafflement: Would you know how to reach the bail commissioner? — Finally they referred me to the Office of Citizens’ Complaints, because “they know everything.” But they didn’t. In the end, Daro Inouye helped me interview him at the Inn Justice.

Would you say you’re more on the public defender’s side or the D.A.’s side?

Oh, I think I piss off both sides, he said.

How fair would you say the bail system is in general?

I acknowledge that it’s an unfair system, but I’m not sure that there’s anything better.

And O.R.? I asked him, because he reviewed all candidates for that avenue to liberty.

My feeling on O.R.? he said slowly. If you’re a person who has a stake in this, you’re gonna have to come back to the courthouse. The others, they don’t give a crap. They may commit the same offense again, sure. We case manage these guys. What else can we do? The fifteen minutes that somebody spends in court is nothing compared to the twenty-four hours he spends in the street. How important can the guy in the black robe be compared to the asshole who keeps chasin’ him in the Tenderloin?

(Failure is a part of the whole cycle, Daro agreed. Otherwise you’re saying, you blew it, that’s it forever, you’re in jail.)

How do you choose who stays and who goes?

I look at the background to see if the person will come back and if he is a particular threat. Has he defaulted before? The first issue is community safety. Then comes the severity of the offense. Finally comes failure to appear. This has nothing to do with has he committed the crime or not, and so I don’t think it gets in the way of presumption of innocence.

When I’d asked Geri Campana how she decided whom to bail, she’d replied: A lot of it is gut feeling. I can pick up the phone and know right away if it’s a good bail or a bad bail. And then a lot of it is the stability of them in the area — how long they work here, how many family members are in my office signing up for them, whether the family’s stable and the defendant has never failed to appear.

So far, this sounded pretty much like Commissioner Lam’s answer. But then I inquired: What’s a bad bail? Somebody who’s going to skip?

Mrs. Campana’s answer went to the heart of the matter: If we take good collateral, we don’t worry about that.

And so, should the collateral be safe and decent, our bondsman crosses the street, ascends those wide steps of the Hall of Justice, and makes a beeline for Room 201 to submit the double-stubbed bond papers (which come preprinted in varying ceiling amounts, just like travelers’ checks) through a circular opening, receiving a receipt in exchange, which at least is more than can be said for many other transactions involving criminality. Next, the bondsman must follow the arrow for the JAIL ELEVATOR. Ascend to the place of confinement, and you’ll find yourself within a narrow cage whose far wall contains a little window, the counterpart of the orifice in Room 201, where the bond is actually posted, words between bondsman and clerk crackling tinnily back and forth through the barrier, as if one of them were a prisoner and the other a visitor — but which is which? The atmosphere of the cage is sadness. Sorrow’s reek wafts in from the cells beyond. But it’s all to the good. No more than six hours after the bond has been posted, and usually sooner, the jailbird will fly free.

Meanwhile, the next defendant is already slowly and sneeringly approaching the judge with a rolling gait, his hands in his pocket. He ignores the jingling of the bailiff’s keys. Ladies bustle back and forth with armloads of files. And his predecessor, the hangdog defendant, looks down as the bailiff unlocks the door to stage left, sending him back to limbo.

Any call that we get, we do anything and everything in our power to help them get out, said Roger Adair. But you can only go so far. You can’t pull a rabbit out of a hat. And if they just can’t work with you, you tell ’em you’re sorry, maybe they can get their bail reduced or plead out on their case or just get it taken it care of. But we do go to great lengths.

Mr. Adair had already admitted that he did not go to great lengths for defendants such as Strawberry, whose famous line I’ll be right back brought smiles to all the grizzled old drinkers’ faces as the new trick commenced his wait. Strawberry was off smoking crack, getting drunk, and engaging in other contract work. She might be back in an hour, or then again it might be a week. We’ve already agreed that her example remains, to use her own summation, irrelevant, the law having long since damned her beyond reach of any bail. — They take me and lock me up, she had fatalistically said. — But set that aside; one last time, let’s suppose her to be one of those near-virginal trick-turners still eligible for bail — in other words, not a parole violator but a doer of a shining misdemeanors. Now, in the bad old days of misdemeanors, a prostitute could expect to face five hundred dollars bail, which at ten percent to the bail bondsman (not Mr. Adair, obviously, but perhaps somebody akin to that tightly grinning fellow up in Spokane who accepted VCRs) required her to turn two extra tricks.* And, by the way, here’s an interesting axiom I heard at the public defender’s office: Only two kinds of defendants fight a misdemeanor charge: middle- class people, who have the time and money to be outraged, and crazy people. The others just plead guilty.* Nowadays, assuming that unlike Strawberry she didn’t have other outstanding warrants, or wasn’t violating parole by getting picked up, she could simply be O.R.’d.

Some bondsmen must not have liked that development, I remarked.

It did take away their bread and butter, the Commissioner laughed.

So more misdemeanors get cited out, but—

But meanwhile, there’s an increase in the jail population in this state due to the increase in wobbler charges. The bail people have failed to understand that almost all street activity is now criminalized. They want a piece of that, but they don’t understand that these street folks don’t have any money.

I mean, where are our priorities here? said Commissioner Lam. This one defendant, all we did was give her a set of teeth and she started smiling. These people don’t wanna be out here smelling like they do. What we do at drug court is teach. I release him; he’s high; and he’s gonna get high again. You wanna plant that seed for next time and next time. I say to them, you’re taking that jailhouse with you everywhere you go until you give up that jailhouse.

Would you favor O.R. over bail, or vice versa?

I do not have a big isssue against O.R. or against bail. Both of them have a place. But one thing I will say. When you bail somebody, you can just bail them. But when you O.R. somebody, you can attach conditions like they have to attend a drug program. And one other thing I want to say: At least eighty percent of my O.R.s do show up in court.

Well, can you suggest any improvement to the way things are now?

What I dream of is a pretrial triage system, he said. I want a pre-arraignment multi-service center. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody was there to say: This guy’s issue is mental illness so let’s treat him for that, this guy’s issue is drug abuse so let’s put him in rehab, this guy’s issue is he’s just a bad actor? So many defendants would be better served in another arena than the criminal justice system. But it’ll never happen.

And I closed my eyes, and saw still another handsclasping defendant sitting with his legs braced apart on the floor of the public defender’s office and his bearded head sunken in sadness.

What did that bitch wanna get noticed for? sneered Chocolate. I don’t wanna be noticed. I don’t want the police to see me all the time. So today when a black-and-white tried to overshadow me, I said, use your brain, girl. I started sneezin’. I said to the pigs: Now I got a cold and tryin’ to go home. — The tall man likewise scorned Domino’s carelessness, but when the Queen emitted her imperishable word, he angelically descended toward Eight-Fifty Bryant without question, treading concrete with silent lengthy steps. He was not in the least interested in what the blonde might have done. What principally occupied him, since his blood currently bore a sufficiently high level of speedball to keep him well, was a domestic question — namely, was Strawberry holding out on him? He hadn’t sniffed out any demonstrable lies, and yet whenever he lurked and guarded the morbid peroxide beauty which grew by night along Capp Street and South Van Ness, he seemed to see Strawberry leaping into strange men’s cars more often than she reached into her stinking brassiere to present him with the latest twenty or forty she’d made. His conscience directed him toward the gentle path of mere watchfulness, since he’d once knocked one of her teeth out for what transpired to be no cause; but his other conscience, the Old Testament one which he knew as well as the many lines of shadow on the soles of the Queen’s feet, demanded utter punishment for infractions of law. His agitation had become by virtue of its very habitude incapable of satisfaction. The Queen’s rule held his worst impulses in check, and thereby stained him, as it would any of us whose lusts and cruelties have been thwarted, with a resentment against the Queen, which his love of her allowed him to avoid acknowledging. Upon what object then could he vent himself? — Strawberry, of course. His love for her licensed him to hate her, while his lack of fear of her incited that hatred. Waking up beside her at eleven that morning in a crack-smoked room of the Topeka Hotel, he’d been seized by so powerful a loathing of her scars, her smelly flesh, and her greedy piglike snores that he almost punched her. Bad control, he told himself. But what if the bitch were holding out? The Queen said never mind. The Queen said that if Strawberry were hiding some cash then that would only be natural. This had merely confirmed him in his suspicions, which were as cruel as Strawberry’s silhouette against a brick wall whose every brick leaped sharply out in sun and shadow to prove itself more durably unfeeling than she. (When he expressed those, the Queen, squatting on a concrete block there in the old factory with her head between arms, stared into his eyes and sadly whispered: What am I supposed to be, though? How long do I gotta be perfect? You think nothing ever goes wrong for me?) In short, she’d insisted that he treat Strawberry as if she were innocent. — You know, Justin, Mr. Cortez the bail bondsman had once said, the first thing you learn when you visit the jail is they’re all innocent! — And he’d laughed his hard laugh. The tall man, as tall as one of the Golden Gate Bridge’s pillars, had heard all that before.

Beneath the Hall of Justice’s twin flags, laughing portfolio-carriers allowed themselves to be ushered through the metal detector, while defendants on bail huddled on the stairs, perimetered by their associated pacers and sitters. But outside and across the street the freedom lottery advertised itself in the boldest colors: KING BAIL BONDS, DE CORTEZ BAIL BONDS, neon handcuffs blinking and springing off a neon wrist. The Queen’s crowd used to go to Crown Bail Bonds because they’d take almost any collateral, sometimes even a mere signature, but one day a lady-in-waiting — Sunflower, in fact — had skipped bail, and by the time the bounty hunters settled things, bad feelings had also settled all around. So Mr. De Cortez, whom everybody called Mr. Cortez, had become the new favored tool.

Unfortunately, Mr. Cortez, who always cracked his knuckles and polished his glasses and cried out: Well, if it isn’t my old friend Justin! wasn’t there. A young lady whom the tall man had never seen before opened the door.

Yes? she said.

Wearily, the tall man took his finger off the buzzer and followed her in.

The individual’s name is Sylvia Fine, he said, standing.

Please sit down, sir. You’re making me nervous. Is that Sylvia with a “y”?

Yep.

Does she have any priors?

Yep.

Case number?

Just do your job, said the tall man. I’m so irritated about this.

Sir, I’m going to have to have the case number.

You see that green binder over there? Open that up. It’s three pages before the last page.

Oh, here she is. AKA “Domino.” And you said this is a drug possession case? Priors, priors… Yes, I should say she does.

What the fuck do you care about priors? Mr. Cortez he don’t talk down to me like this. You shouldn’t even be keepin’ that information. Long as you got the collateral, baby, what the fuck’s the difference if the bitch got priors?

And your name?

Justin Soames, the tall man said, already taking a California identification card from somewhere inside his shirt.

No, we don’t need that yet, Mr. Soames. You don’t have to get ahead of yourself. Will you please sit down? This is going to take a few minutes.

How many counts she got?

Sir, I—

How much this gonna cost?

Well, if you’ll kindly be seated, sir, I’ll just call Room 201 and find out.

I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, said the tall man. He walked out, strolling that freedom strip, which was all bail bonds establishments with the exception of the auto glass place, the mecca for concrete hardeners and a couple of delis, and in the parking lot by the Inn Justice he smoked a rock, feeling an almost intolerable bitterness. In his imagination he raped the woman (who at that moment was gossiping about him on the phone, saying: There are those you have to chase. Over the years you get to know…), and then he slowly sawed her head off. He knocked the rest of Strawberry’s teeth out. He blew up the Hall of Justice with its blank whitestone walls and whitestone steps on which unfortunates were sitting or standing, waiting for their own funerals or for some metaphor thereof, guarded by the triple mailbox and the police cars slowly cruising round and round. He won a million dollars in the lottery. He went fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. These pleasure-strategems relaxed him slightly, so that he was able to smile at his reflection in a massage parlor’s silvered window, with a hooded brilliance equal to Domino’s whenever that lady recollected the time when, aged thirteen, she’d helped her sister’s boyfriend torch the Catholic high school.

A white boy wandered uneasily by. The tall man said: You lookin’? You lookin’?

Maybe. What do you have?

China white. One eight G.*

Dime?†

Uh huh.

Sure, I, uh…

Suddenly the boy ran off.

Boo! the tall man laughed, making a monster face.

A dragon made of cloud reared above the swiggling Victorian dormer windowfronts. He glared at it for half an hour.

Ms. Fine appears to have no permanent address, the woman said. You understand that we have to be very careful when transients are involved. Usually we don’t even deal with them. They’re too great a risk.

The tall man, still standing, clenched the edge of the desk.

Moreover, she has a number of nonappearances.

Yeah, well, you gonna get collateral, so it’s no skin off your nose.

In some counties they fine you for nonappearance.

What about this one?

Mr. Soames, I’m trying to break her out for you. But you need to cooperate. The big powers, they don’t usually issue bail to you until you show that you write carefully. You’ve got to get property, deeds of trust and so on. Because an original bond is like a check. And so I have to write this up very carefully.

And if she don’t appear—

If you fail to appear, there’s an immediate bench warrant. We have no control over that. We get a forfeiture notice, and we notify the indemnifier — that’s you. And then—

Yeah, lady. I heard all that before.

Now I’m ready to see your identification, the woman said. Is this your current address?

Sure.

Mr. Soames, I’ll need verification. I have to protect myself, you know.

From li’l ole me? chuckled the tall man, towering over her, stinking of anger and hatred.

If somebody just takes off, we’d be responsible to the court, Mr. Soames. So in that case we get somebody to track the defendant down….

How much is the fucking bail, lady?

Mr. Soames, every once in a while I get somebody who raises my flag. You’re one of those people.

You fucking ho bitch. I ought to cut you up, said the tall man, exiting. He went to Norris’s, where a friend of his had once gotten sprung in those long-ago days before he’d even heard of the Queen. Mr. Norris gave him a cup of coffee and found out without any fuss that Domino’s bail had been set at fifty-five thousand five hundred dollars, which he was able to reduce to twenty-five thousand after three phone calls to the judge.

Fuckin’ ho bitch always costin’, said the tall man, who was now in a very ugly mood.

Well, it’s Friday, Mr. Norris consoled him. On Friday, everything that could go wrong, goes wrong.

I’m sick of that bitch.

Yeah, Justin, I understand.

Do you really?

Well, for somebody who has a lot of money, twenty-five thousand dollars for bail isn’t that big a deal. He can just put it on his credit card. For somebody living day to day, ten dollars is a lot of money.

Damn right.

See, I told you I understood.

The tall man grimaced.

And how’s her life?

Look, Mr. Norris. You ain’t her shrink, so don’t be her shrink.

You know, Justin, in this job what I like to do is make a difference. I like to think I can help somebody else, see ’em turn their life around.

Fine, so lemme call you Jesus. Me, I got the Mark of Cain.

The other part is when you watch people’s lives just dwindle away. You watch ’em throw their life away. And it’s sad, but that’s the business we’re in.

You philosopher, said the tall man, transforming the word into an obscenity. He counted out Mr. Norris’s ten percent: ten twenties, five tens, a fifty, and twenty-two hundreds. The collateral, which Mr. Norris kept on what might be called a permanent loan, consisted of a television, two VCRs, title and registration to an old red Ford pickup truck, a mink coat and an album of rare stamps. Every item had been stolen. Mr. Norris knew this hoard to be worth much less than the tall man believed, but as long he believed it, he’d stay honest. Thus ran Mr. Norris’s theory, which was not only philosophical but also empirically scientific in the best sense.

Very good, Justin, he said. Now let me just walk over to Room 201 with the information sheet and this receipt. I think we’ll have your friend for you within the hour.

Fine, said the tall man. Break her loose.

When the Queen bailed her out of jail, the blonde felt herself suddenly invulnerable. (How could Dom get popped out of jail so quick? marveled Strawberry. I mean, they caught her with crack right on her body. I heard they found a baggy inside her pussy.) The Queen had protected all Domino’s clothes for her, hiding them in some recess darker and grimier than all the secondhand furniture for sale on Mission Street’s sidewalks, and so every last beautifully silver garment had been saved. Domino knelt. She smiled somberly, thin-lipped and glowing-eyed, with all the grey freshly dyed out of her long blonde hair, and suddenly the Queen saw in her the same immense and speechless patience which she always marked in Beatrice; as if Domino were saying to her just then: My life is mine; I own it; I acknowledge it; I will live it out to the bitter end and do whatever I have to do to keep on being me, and if doing those things becomes sometimes bitter or hellish I will still be me at any cost; I’ll never disappear into Nirvana as Sunflower did… — Whereas Beatrice represented softly giving endurance, Domino possessed many plans which were square-angled like late afternoon shadows on Capp Street. Already she could see herself marching into the Wonderbar where Loreena the barmaid would cry: Hey, kid! and Domino would flash her bright red, sneering, crooked smile. She would never be afraid, no, never. She slipped around her Queen’s neck a wilted red ribbon which under cover of amplified Spanish-language paeans to Jesus she’d stolen from a pharmacy on Valencia Street. The Queen kissed her lips, and she stuck her tongue up the Queen’s mouth, as happy as she’d ever be. The Queen granted her some fresh hot spit, whose psychochemicals made her pleasantly drunk. Then Domino shinnied into her best silver high heels, turned a trick (and here we ought to remind the reader without any sarcasm whatsoever that Domino could ride her tricks as agilely as a stewardess can brace herself against the ceiling of a small plane, defying turbulence, carrying drinks which tremble in the plastic cups — in other words, Domino knew exactly how to move and how far to go, being perfect at what she did), and in her sexy cat’s-eye sunglasses she lolled naked on the strange man’s couch with a toothy grin and clenched fists, thinking: Well, even in my thirties I still have something they want — I’m still in business! — I still get paid! (but the blonde suddenly shuddered as she shoved away a memory of double dating with the late Sunflower, a memory neither particularly familiar nor fiendish of two men’s penises straining at their faces as she knelt beside the other whore in the back of a flatbed truck, saying over her shoulder: You wanna suck that, Sun? — Okay, said Sunflower dully, scratching her goosepimpled thighs). At least the strange man paid well — which is to say, Domino gaffled him good and proper. Almost drunk with joy, she spent the money on “white girl” cocaine and a rum and Coke at the Wonderbar, coolly watching the way Loreena’s face widened when she smiled, as if Loreena were an interesting creature which Domino could vivisect whenever and wherever she chose. She turned another trick on Mission and Fifteenth, which act she later would not remember because this time the money was not so good, and after that, paranoid about what our televisions like to name “a police presence,” took the bus to Larkin and Eddy, where Vietnamese restaurants presented to the world their blue and red awnings. Inside the nearest one, Vietnamese guys in caps whose brims sometimes projected forward like bills, sometimes backward like ducktails, raised their beer-glasses and turned the place blue with cigarette-smoke. A cellular phone rang; the waiter brought more Budweiser all around.

My wife have boyfriend! That’s why I come here and I drink big!

Sew her pussy shut!

They were all laughing, all red in the face.

Me, I have two wives — one here, one in Vietnam. So I tell everyone I’m single!

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Aaaaaaah! they chorused, clinking glasses.

What a bunch of lousy fucking misogynists, Domino muttered. She stood waiting patiently outside the window for a good ten minutes, but her Vietnamese regular never kept his appointment. She reached inside her heart and tore her happiness into shreds which she then released from her bloody-fingernailed fists like confetti and twisted under both heels.

Half a block away, bright blonde girls all in a row were going into the black cop van. Suddenly there were no more girls.

Beatrice likewise expressed affectionate joy at Domino’s return, congratulating and kissing her in a way that aroused the blonde; she always desired Beatrice even though she was fat and she stank. So for a moment she actually believed that Beatrice cared for her, and kissed her in return. When they were cheek to cheek, the Mexican girl whispered: I got a surprise for you. I doan use los drogas no more.

Why’s that? said the blonde, not really listening as she slid her finger slowly down into Beatrice’s underpants.

I was talking to God, and God said: Beatrice, doan use los drogas no more. And I said: Thank you, God. Thank you for thinking about me.

Whatever, said Domino. Hey, you want a hit off my crack pipe?

Okay, said Beatrice with a happy guilty smile.

Domino’s hand on her vulva felt as scorching as one of those dark boxcars sitting in the hot California sun. Beatrice was simultaneusly aroused and afraid. Understanding very well what the blonde intended, she wished that she could have run away to her Mama the Queen, but she respected Mama too greatly to disturb her. It was late afternoon. The fire escapes of the Tenderloin shone in the sun like charbroiled bones. They went to the abandoned ball bearing factory and made love, Domino giving it to her really hard with a dildo until Beatrice screamed with pain, pain flashing in and out of her in a rhythm like the quaking of a bar’s double doors in Mexicali to let in a blast of white-hot sunlight and flashes of car-hoods upon the fat whores inside, may they rest in peace, who are busy shrieking with laughter, peering over each other’s shoulders and slapping each other’s palms, bright and burning pain expertly applied which ended as soon as it began, pain which Beatrice could not comprehend, and so — a blessed strategem, as priests might say — she did not attempt to comprehend it, putting on that same absent look in her eyes that she displayed when she leaned up against a storefront for hours, waiting and waiting to sell her pussy but already high, already well, so she was already gone and whatever bad thing was supposed to happen to her that night could safely happen because she was dead enough to roll with any punch. Although she dared not pray to the Virgin anymore, because in her state that might be blasphemy, the Virgin still sometimes came into her heart and gave her advice, and one time she warned Beatrice always to please and placate, in case something happened to the Queen. This was only another job — certainly not as bad as being raped. Sometimes she even felt pleasure, when Domino refrained from doing it too hard. But today the blonde was very needy; she’d been in prison too long; she couldn’t control herself. Beatrice merely prayed to God (Whom even a damned soul such as herself could always pray to) to protect her from getting a hemorrhage. Then it was over. Domino climaxed with loud and ringing cries. She embraced Beatrice, kissed her many times, and gave her more crack. The pain was all ended now. Hard, yet bright of mood and somehow sincere, as she could still be at many an odd moment, she said to her: I love your box, hon. You’ve got such a fine, fine little box, such a hot little box… — Beatrice felt intensely safe and happy in Domino’s arms.

Don’t you think I’m to die for? said Domino, who felt so high-spirited that she was almost crazed.

Sure, said the john.

You don’t have to die for me. I’ll just kill you — ha, ha, ha!

In a hotel room, the john slowly masturbated, then ejaculated onto her face. Domino went to the sink and washed herself off. Within five minutes she’d convinced herself that it hadn’t happened, and her exhilaration returned.

Around the corner from the O’Farrell Theater (“THE PLACE TO GO IN SAN FRANCISCO”), there was Domino, so luminously blonde, stopping traffic in her sweatshirt and shorts, turning her head, slowly gazing over her shoulder at the passing cars all the way along Larkin to the Ambika Hotel where my friend Mayumi got threatened while distributing free food, and then the Nitecape and the Dong Baek Korean restaurant, all the way to the 501 Club on Jones, the Hong Kong oriental massage place, the Columbia Hotel, the parking garage on Mason, the Irish Horse, the Virginia Hotel — she could see everything, and it all belonged to her. She pulled down her shorts so that the entire world could see pussy-fur, then screamed: I’m the best!

Loreena was only three hours into her shift at the Wonderbar when Domino came in with Lily, and two johns clung to them like tourists hanging onto a cable car’s sides. — You’re buying, Loreena heard one john say to the other john. You’re the high roller.

Usual? said Loreena to the johns to make them feel special. (She often got tips that way.) The johns had been in yesterday, and each of them had ordered a shot of tequila straight up.

Yeah, the one who was paying said. That usual.

And I know what these ladies want, said Loreena with a neutral smile.

From the corner, an old drunk in a cowboy hat cried: None of that street tramp trash for me. Hey! Hey! I’m talkin’ to you all. Go by the Four-Star or the Mitchell Brothers to get girls with real class. Spit in my eye if you can’t. None of this T.L. trash. None of this Capp Street trash.

Be quiet, Alfie, said Loreena. Let Domino and Lily do their thing.

Well, so what do you think? Domino was saying to her prey. You going to do it or not? If you’re not going to do it, I don’t have all night.

I’ll have to ask the boss, the john who wasn’t paying replied.

Loreena was pouring Domino her rum and Coke when Domino said sharply: Hey! You shorted me on that!

What do you mean? said Loreena. I gave you two shots instead of one. And two shots are only two dollars when one shot is a dollar seventy-five. And if Heavyset were here, he wouldn’t let me go past the line. A shot’s a shot, he’d say. But I filled it right up to the top.

Fuck the owner, said Domino. You shorted me.

Look, Domino, said Loreena. I don’t like it when you start getting sniffy with me. Now watch this.

She took a glass, crammed it full of ice, and poured two shots of bourbon in.

Were you watching, sweetie? she said. Did you get that? See, it’s not even as high as what I gave you. Satisfied?

It should be a quarter-inch higher, Domino insisted.

Fuck you! said Loreena, pouring the demonstration glass down the sink while Domino slowly licked her lips.

Thank you, too, Loreena, said Domino with a bright smile.

She gulped her drink down.

So, she said to her john (a man with his glasses on his forehead, a grey suit like a beetle-shell over his paunch), your time’s about up. I have to attend a memorial service for a very close friend who died and I’m trying to raise the money to go. Can you help me out?

Loreena started laughing. Domino glared at her.

Let me go talk to the boss, the john said.

He tapped the other john’s shoulder, and they went into the corner, where they whispered and calculated.

He’s hooked, said Loreena.

Don’t tell me my business, snarled Domino.

It’s my business, too, sweetie. I’ve been watching you put the moves on for years. I never guess wrong about you. You’ll see.

Pour me another shot, said Domino.

Who’s paying? said Loreena.

Put it on their tab.

Well, then let’s make it a double, laughed Loreena, pouring right up to the top of the glass.

That’s more like it, said Domino. Why’d you have to short me the first time?

He said it’s OK with him, her john reported.

All right, let’s go, said Domino, rising. As soon as Loreena had slid the drink across the counter it was aloft and then its contents were down her throat. Truth to tell, Domino had some kind of white fungus on her tonsils, and she drank to kill the pain. Lily had told her once that you didn’t have to worry about AIDS until the white fungus began growing on the roof of your mouth. Then you had problems, Lily said.

Hey, I didn’t order that drink, the boss accused.

Loreena put her hands on her hips. — Well, somebody’s paying for it, mister, and I have a feeling that’s going to be you.

The boss swore and and plunked three dollars down. Loreena would have thanked him, but just then a pimp came in and began to bang on the bar with his fist, shouting: I want an orange juice right now!

Go fuck yourself! said Loreena with a happy laugh.

Meanwhile, in the back seat, the john insisted on holding Domino’s hand while the boss drove and told dirty jokes to Lily. Domino let her john do what he wanted while she stared out the window. She saw Beatrice standing on the corner, holding a soda as she gazed up at the brickwork of the Goodness Tenderloin Center. Domino didn’t wave.

So was it a close friend who died? the john ventured.

Oh, actually it’s a barbeque, said Domino with a yawn. For a lady with a pet potbellied pig.

Ten minutes later he was trying to pull her down on the floor of the boss’s place, while in the bedroom where the boss and Lily were, the bed creaked loudly and briefly.

How much are you going to pay me? said Domino.

You said twenty dollars, the john said.

That’s just to prime my pump. How much you got?

The john turned his pockets inside out and excreted thirty.

All right, said Domino. Now, what do you want me to do?

Just lie in my arms for a minute, the john said.

Oh, so you’re one of those, said Domino.

What’s that mean?

Domino, bored, got down on her side and lay rigid while the man touched her breasts.

That just tickles, she said after awhile. Cut it out.

Lifting her skirt, the john discovered the same motorcycle scar which had impressed Tyler, and then a new tattoo of two linked female symbols.

Oh, are you bi? he said.

Yep, said Domino. Get on with it.

Can I eat you out? he said.

Mm hm, said Domino, not listening.

He opened her legs and started to lower his face and she said: Oh, no, I don’t do that.

Oh, okay, the john said.

Well, thank you for being such a gentleman, said Domino. This was fun. I’ve got to go.

She stood up and walked out, leaving Lily in the now silent bedroom. What did she care about that bitch?

Domino rolled a condom onto the customer’s penis with her tongue, started to suck him, took her face away for a moment, winked and said: This is the worst chewing gum I ever tasted.

The man laughed so hard he lost his erection.

That’s it then, said Domino. You’re done.

Just a minute, said the man. Together they stared at his flaccid penis, as if it might actually rescue the two of them from each other, but nothing happened.

Better luck next time, said Domino. Thanks for being such a gentleman.

She rose so that her skirt fell back down to her knees, slipped on her high heels, and strode triumphantly out while the man sat holding his penis in disbelief. Domino was in a hurry now. She did not spare much consideration for the impressionist lampshade-light in the brick windows of Chinatown, nor for the red diamonds on the whitewalled apartments above the Golden City Restaurant and Market. Once very very long ago she’d been a go-go dancer shouting to keep the job she was late for, shouting until the phone booth reeked of her perfume; she’d lost that job and lost the next. In a quarter-hour she was back home among the Tenderloin’s laughing and mumbling whores in the rain, the high-priced whores who sported satin umbrellas and shimmering boots, and whose faces were as blank and shiny as new Coca Cola cans. A blonde in a white skirt and a black umbrella offered each car a little-girl wave.

I used to look as good as that, said Domino, looking the young blonde up and down.

What are you staring at? sneered the young blonde. You’re nothing. You’re just an old sack of trash!

Domino then felt the same sensation as her late companion, the man with the flaccid penis. But she did not herself withdraw into flaccidity. Snatching up a broken beer bottle from the sidewalk, she rushed the girl and brought the club down on her forehead hard enough to shatter glass anew. The girl fell down bleeding and screaming. Domino, knowing better than to tempt the squat square rainy black buttocks of police cars, slipped off her high heels and ran down to Turk Street. Then, reshod, she approached the parking lot on Golden Gate where the tall man man lorded it over the shadows.

She whistled four times, and he lobbed her a dime bag.

That’ll work, chucked the blonde, paying him.

Gimme five for Maj’s retirement fund, said the tall man.

For hers or for yours? said Domino disdainfully. How do I know what crap you’re up to?

You got some mouth, said the tall man. You be lucky you’re in good with Maj. Otherwise I might just have to beat your whitebread ass.

Oh la-la, sneered Domino. Don’t think I haven’t figured out who’s gaffling everybody else. And someday I’m going to do something about it.

Now who’s gettin’ accused? said the tall man watchfully. You got the guts to accuse me to my face? Or you accusin’ Maj behind her back as usual?

Fuck you, Justin. Hey, keep an eye out for a sec, would you? I need to pee.

She squatted down between two cars and began to make water, which struck the asphalt with a sizzling noise. Many things are more convenient without underwear.

Hey! she said indignantly. You’re not supposed to watch me, you pervert!

The tall man chuckled. Certain things I like to look at. Not so much what you be doin’ there, but the part of you you be doin’ it from.

Wiping herself on her skirt, Domino rose, not really angry at all. — Hey, you know that guy Henry? The one who keeps hanging around the Queen? He likes that stuff. He’s into golden showers.

Me, I’m just into gold, said the tall man.

You’re just a big black jerk, laughed Domino. Here’s ten dollars for your retirement fund.

She turned her back on him and went out toward the ticket booth. She lit up a cigarette. A man was approaching. She said to him tentatively: Hey, you wanna…?

The man gazed at her intensely. Then he got into his truck and drove away.

Domino breezed into the Wonderbar, drunk and high, determined to get drunker. An old john whom she dated once or twice a month sat down beside her. — Aha, the old bastard’s horny again! she thought gleefully, showing him leg. I’m the best!

The john said: You, uh, I, uh-uh-uh-uh—

Gimme a twirl! laughed the drunken blonde. Why do you think li’l girls like to twirl? Not just to see their skirts fly up, though that’ll work for some. The real reason is, it makes you high. But I did just wash my underwear. Wanna see?

I… well, I, yes.

Then I’ll give you a twirl! Ha, ha, ha!

You’re so — I mean to say, Domino, you, uh, you’re beautiful.

Black belt, leather, lace, why don’t you SIT on my — face! See I’m a poet. I wish I could dance on the bar, but — and suddenly the blonde burst into tears — Loreena won’t let me. I know her. I just know…

Well, said the Canadian doctor, joke goes like this: Guy’s trying to call Canada, and the operator says: Sorry, sir, that’s an imaginary number. Please multiply by the square root of minus one and try again. Well, it’s just a mathematics joke. I can’t make any excuses for it. It’s not me who’s the lawyer; it’s my wife.

Domino smiled well-manneredly. — Hey, you got five dollars?

Absently, the doctor reached into his wallet and counted out five ones. Domino saw a hundred dollar bill in there and her heart pounded.

So where did you say you were from? Domino said.

The doctor looked at her. — I’m from Canada. Have you been listening to anything I said?

Sure, Professsor. You were talking about your wife. So you wanna kind of like unzip, and then maybe we can relax? I’m real tight down there, you know what I mean?

Listen, said the doctor. I changed my mind. I wanted somebody who could pretend a little better than you could.

Oh, well, aren’t we hurt! sneered Domino. Just because I don’t understand all your mathematics shit, you can’t get hard! You have it in for me because I never had the opportunity you had? You have something against girls that never had the chance to get a good education, that never even got a decent pair of shoes?

Those sneakers of yours look just fine to me, said the doctor. Or don’t they count?

Domino reached into her purse and pulled out a razor-knife. — All right, don’t play games with me, she said. I want your wallet.

They call some people shot-callers, said the tall man. They’re the ones that call the shots. If you gotta get well and I wanna sell you some powder for a higher price and you say no, don’t mean no nevermind, ’cause you gotta have that powder, see. I call the shot.

How many women shot-callers you know? said Domino.

A few. And they be so cold.

How about me?

You certainly be cold enough. Might as well call you the Ice Bitch. But that’s not all there is to it. You got to show some sense. Why be mean when you can accomplish the same thing by coaxin’?

I don’t give a fuck about coaxing, laughed Domino.

That’s what I’m saying. Oh, what’s the use?

Shit, if I was the Queen I’d get good for all the girls, get a nice escort service, hundred dollar dates for even the girls that didn’t deserve it, even the ugly girls, even the mean, stupid bitches, even the assholes that ripped me off and gaffled me and jacked me up, and they wouldn’t have to pay nothin’. Not a fuckin’ thing. Justin. I’d be so good to them they wouldn’t know what hit ’em. I was in an escort service for a number of years. Being the Queen is easier than you might ever dream. And I sure as hell wouldn’t… wouldn’t… what the fuck was I talking about? Jeez, my head hurts.

It hurts from doing what you call thinking, said Justin. Now leave me in peace. I’m gonna roll myself some of this greenbud. Thank the Lord you’re allergic to that. Otherwise you’d be hitting me up and threatening…

I wouldn’t make ’em stay in this dump, either, Domino muttered. I wouldn’t want ’em with me, anyhow. Better to get myself a nice big old house like I used to have before my mother lost her mind, and I want a kitty, a nice white kitty cat. And all the rest of you, I’d keep you at arm’s length, I tell you. You goddamned backstabbers…

Who’s that rose for? That rose for me?

It’s for the Queen, said Tyler.

For the Queen! Oh! You datin’ the Queen? said Kitty.

I’m just bringing her a rose.

Shit! Why didn’t you bring me one?

Evening, Strawberry, Tyler said. Have you been crying?

Justin and I broke up, the whore wept.

I’m sorry to hear that, he said. What was the last thing you said to him?

I told him he’d be well advised to use this time packing.

And what did he say?

Oh, he said something about me, involving fornicating female dogs. Oh, hell. Here he comes. Justin! Justin, I already told you! Keep away from me, I said! Justin!

The tall man glared scarlet-eyed and slugged her in the mouth. Her lip split and blood dribbled down her chin.

Come on home, she said to him steadily. Let’s forget this. When we get home I’ll go out and make money and get you another drink.

He needs another drink like I need an airplane, Kitty muttered.

The tall man punched Strawberry again. Kitty screamed.

All right, Justin, said Tyler. You made your point.

Strawberry turned on him, clawing and shrieking: Stay out of my business, you bastard! This is between Justin and me!

I get it, said Tyler. Where’s the Queen?

In there, said the tall man.

All right, he said, walking around them. He heard the tall man punch Strawberry again, and felt sickened.

Beatrice was playing with a blue tiger which she had made out of papier mâché when Tyler came down the steps into the tunnel, giving her game surcease. She likewise hated the tall man’s violence, even though she could understand very well that he might become exasperated because Strawberry was a born thief and even from her own sisters she would steal. Once Beatrice had caught her trying to sell Domino’s silver shoes. She begged her not to do that, but the other girl wouldn’t listen. But whenever the tall man beat her, ay! Poor Strawberry! How Beatrice pitied her!

Afternoon, Bea, he said drily.

Oh, Henry, why is Justin so fierce? I’m afraid now even to see his face! And Strawberry, she’s so patient, may the saints protect her… When he goes away I can give to her this tiger, and may she find joy in it.

I figure you and I should go out dancing sometime, he said to cheer her. — Maj tells me you used to dance professionally…

With a bitter grimace she replied: On the Day of the Dead they only know to dance their own way.

What’s that got to do with anything? You thinking of dying anytime soon?

From behind, they heard Strawberry’s shrill, sharp screams. But the darkness ahead where the Queen was was silent.

I dislike it, she said. Ay, how I dislike it.

Never mind, Bea. In your home town how do they dance?

They dance different. It’s like the same music, but nobody show them.

You still like to dance?

She trembled. — No, she said. No more. Now I doan like.

All right, he said.

He could not unhear Strawberry’s screams and Kitty’s screams.

The Queen was in the darkness muttering: I’m fixin’ to go buy some groceries.

Is Strawberry going to be okay? he said.

Justin slapping her around again, huh? said the Queen. I seen that almost every month.

Yeah.

Oh, he’s a wild one, said the Queen, resigned.

What if he kills her?

He won’t.

I don’t get it. Don’t you run things here? Are you trying to tell me she wants it?

Hush up, Henry. She done him wrong this time. She flushed all his china white down the toilet an’ then told him she done it. It’s always this way. She’ll be sick a couple of days…

It makes me anxious, he said. I hate to see her allowing that to happen.

Nobody sayin’ you don’t have a good heart. But maybe you don’t understand. It’s not always wrong when a man hits a woman. Most of the time, yes. But not all the time.

I don’t know.

You’d never do it. But maybe she needs it.

How could anyone need it?

Strawberry! called the Queen. Strawberry, c’mere!

The whore came in torn clothes, bleeding from the mouth, one eye swollen shut. Justin was stamping and roaring outside as his victim whispered: This is how the world is. Oh, Jesus! Someone’s gonna get compensated, but it’s still horrendous. I still hope someday we’ll all laugh about it, but oh well.

Strawberry! Strawberry!

What? she sobbed. Maj, he’s so violent. Can’t you —

Strawberry, this gentleman told me he’s worryin’ about you.

Tell Henry to keep the fuck out of my business.

All right, baby, you can go. Now, Henry, do you believe?

I believe in her pride, that’s all.

You want me to take your pain away? I could make you drink something so you’d forget Irene forever. You wouldn’t wake up cryin’ no more. You want me to do that?

No.

Why not?

I don’t know, he said wearily. Can we talk about something else?

In other words, keep the fuck out of my business.

No, Maj. I’d never say that.

Well?

Irene’s so precious to me.

You see? You’re like some wolf that keeps lickin’ the razor-blade; he drinks his own blood an’ bleeds to death, ’cause he likes the taste. You an’ Strawberry, oh me oh my…

The screams had begun again. He sighed and said: Here’s a rose for you.

The Queen accepted the flower, stood up on tiptoe and kissed his face.

Did she touch you? Smooth wanted to know when he had recounted this much.

Yep.

No, Henry, I suspect your ignorant and envious ears mistook my meaning. I meant, did she touch you? I meant, did she leave marks?

That’s between her and me.

No it isn’t, Smooth replied with logic as tight as the pussy of the skeletal whore whose face had been destroyed in an automobile accident. You couldn’t have met her without me, boyo. What’s more, you —

Talk about envious ears, my God!

Come on down to the basement, said Smooth. I just got me a Hi-Standard twenty-two I wanted to break in. They say it takes five hundred rounds to loosen her up. Salesman I bought it from has one of his own; that’s how he sold me on it, you see. He said it was fun. Now, he did warn me that during the break-in period it jammed once or twice with every magazine, which didn’t turn me on. He got so he wanted to throw it against the ever-lovin’ wall, he said. But he’s had it for twenty years since then, and never a problem. Now he’s addicted.

I’ve got to go.

No you don’t.

I don’t mind obeying her. But I kind of dislike it when you push me around…

Why so belligerent, Henry? Grin and bear it, now. Maybe you—

I get so bored and so tired sometimes—

Well, what’s your favorite subject? Irene? That’ll perk you right up. Henry, baby, you want to talk about Irene? I’m all attention.

Please cut it out, said Tyler, rubbing his chin.

No, that’s what I was going to say to you. I’m lonely, you see.

Well, I—

And maybe I can give you some advice about how to proceed with our Queen.

What do you mean, proceed?

Don’t you want to take it to the next level, Henry? Don’t you want to learn the secret of life? You can’t always predict what she’ll teach you, but whatever she imparts, well, zowie! Get that Mark of Cain working for you, son! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and—

Cut the corny crap. I give up. So you’ve got a shooting range downstairs?

Well, you could call it that.

Smooth opened the basement door and clicked a switch connected to a wan bulb. They went down.

Not so many basements in Sacramento, Tyler said.

Flood plain. This house was built two big floods ago. There was no flood insurance requirement back then, and the state was having a drought, so nobody believed in floods. Just like you, Henry boy — you were getting discouraged about the Queen before you met me, hey? Well, that flood came, and the basement filled up, and the family that lived here moved out and sold it to me. Basement filled up again when the last flood came, and I guess it will do it when the next flood comes. I still don’t pay flood insurance. Why?

Why what?

Why did you ask?

I don’t care, to be honest. Just making conversation.

No. I won’t accept that. Meaningless conversation is not allowed in my house. What’s your point?

I’ve given up looking for points.

I’d given it up long before you were born, son. And you know what? We’re both liars. We both want all the answers. How old are you, anyway?

Forty-four, said Tyler.

Well, I was going to say that you were only twenty-four, but you’d lived a hard life. Another of my jokes, see.

Ha ha.

A train whistled, long and slow. The two men stood on a dark green carpet which smelled like disinfectant and cigarette smoke which drifted down, as limp as Domino on heroin at the Wonderbar with her head on the counter and her long hair trailing in her drink. A foam rubber mattress with three pillows on it lay in the corner beside an electrical outlet. On the walls were taped illustrations of Boy Scouts and other adventurous young males, scissored out of the pages of Boy’s Life and similar publications. In the face of Tyler’s silence, Smooth said: I may be jealous, son, but I’m still the ordained debriefer and father confessor. Do you trust me?

I do not, you pompous old shit.

I never asked if you liked me. I asked if you trusted me.

Why should I trust you? You just want to get under my skin. You sort of pry into my business and—

Oh, heavens. I’ve got more to do than that. Getting under your skin is just my little recreation. Think nothing of it. Now, do you trust me?

I can’t honestly say I do.

All right. Do you trust my devotion to the Queen?

Tyler hesitated. — Yes, he said.

All right. And what about yourself, buddy? Are you devoted, too?

I guess I’ve signed on.

So you trust our coincidence of interests?

What’s the difference, Smooth? I’m so tired of talking about this. Motives don’t count worth a damn anyway. Only actions are valid. I—

You’d like to pretend that was the case, wouldn’t you? But I’d bet a hundred dollars that whenever you fuck up, you excuse yourself for good intentions. In fact…

In fact you revel in the real or imaginary weaknesses of others, Tyler replied, raising his voice. You’re like a dog that loves to roll in shit! I admit that my shit stinks as much as yours, but I don’t go out of my way to smell it—

Interesting analogy! said Smooth brightly. Because to really serve the Queen, you know, you’ll need to develop an intimacy with many kinds of body products.

Dan, you used to disgust me, but now you just bore me.

Ah. Well, are you ready to shoot?

Right now I’m pissed off at you, so don’t put a gun in my hand.

Here you go. The famous Hi-Standard.

All right, asshole, Tyler said. My brother used to have one of those. What are we shooting at?

Hang your target on that clothesline there, over by the sandbags. You aren’t so incompetent you’ll miss the sandbags, are you?

Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say that.

Good. But aren’t you carrying today?

No, Dan. I don’t need a pistol to visit my mother.

But you’re visiting me.

They loaded up and shot for an hour or two, the sounds of the shots muffled and sad through their ear protectors like hammer-blows in some mineshaft far away. — You’re a pretty good shot, said Tyler with surprise and respect. — But the Hi-Standard jammed every five or six shots. Smooth said that the old manufacturing dies had nearly worn out, which was why a used Hi-Standard from the 1950s sold for as much as a new one from 1995. Tyler listened glumly, holding the gun with the muzzle safely sandbag-pointed. In truth, it was not so much Smooth who repulsed him, as his own life, whose fundamental meaninglessness he confessed in a series of skull-muffled shouts. How could he retain any faith in the Queen, when she squatted like a spider in the darkness while the tall man beat Strawberry? What was she even good for? Maybe he should humble himself, apologize to John and ask for another loan. He’d go to night school. He’d become a…

But he could not think what he desired to become.

As a matter of fact, I used to shoot competition, the pedophile was saying. Here lay his vanity, Tyler thought. And he did his best not to smile as Smooth babbled on: Gave that up about ten years ago now, when some fellows who’d heard about me started calling me names right there on the firing line. But I still get out to the range from time to time.

You’re a good shot, Tyler repeated weakly, longing for a drink.

Oh, not very. I could blow your head off at fifty yards. But if I could shoot through your left eyeball eight out of ten times at fifty yards, now, that would be good shooting.

I guess that’s a compliment. That’s what my eyeball guesses.

Oh, I don’t shoot my three fifty-seven much. I usually go out with my Ruger, which I load way under specs for target. But this Hi-Standard is… Well. I guess you’re driving back before long?

Yeah.

And Irene is still on your mind?

Yeah.

What time is it?

Going on three.

You fixing to see Maj tonight?

You need to report back to her?

Maybe.

On me?

Sure.

All right. What hoops do I have to jump through now?

All of ’em, Henry. I wouldn’t take less.

And what does she say about me?

She might be able to get some good use out of you before you crack.

I know she gets good use out of you.

Now, Henry, there’s your envy speaking again.

But what’s it all about? Tyler almost shouted.

Nothing, brother. Everything’s about nothing. You know that, but you prefer to pretend otherwise. We both do.

You know, Smooth, I kind of figure your job isn’t really to get information on me. I’d also say the Queen tends to make up her own mind no matter what you tell her…

Correct. Now, Henry, do you love her?

I beg your pardon?

Do you love our Queen?

How about you? Tyler said, swallowing nervously.

I’d die for her.

All right, fine. I love her. I don’t know whether I’d die for her or not.

But you’re not actually about love in this case, are you? You’re like one of those lepers in a medieval morality play crying out: Heal me! That’s what you want the Queen for. And you’re still holding a torch for Whatchamahoosis. Christine.

Irene.

Got your goat, didn’t I? You simple sonofabitch! You know, if you wear your heart on your sleeve, other people can see it and spit on it.

People such as you, Dan.

I expect so. Ha! Now you’re mad, aren’t you? You’re so cute when you’re mad.

I’ll see you around, Dan.

You know what? said Smooth.

What? said Tyler, gritting his teeth.

I think you never cared all that much for your sister-in-law. I think you only cared about losing her. It’s loss you’re in love with. That’s why you hang onto it. I’ll bet that before that Irene came along you were whining about someone else. Oh, I remember now. You grew up without a father, didn’t you? That explains it. Ain’t I clever? And now you want the Queen because you don’t believe it’ll work out with her. And if it does, maybe you’ll wreck it yourself just so you can mourn her. Aren’t I right, Henry? Just swallow hard and tell me I’m right. Aren’t you one of the most pitifully self-destructive, selfish bipeds that ever walked the streets? Well, aren’t you?

I don’t need any deathbed regrets when I’m around you, said Tyler with a trembling laugh.

There you go with your regrets again. And Irene—

You want me to betray Irene’s memory, and I’ll never do that! It feels like betraying her just allowing you to spit her name out of your sneering lips… I’m leaving. You got what you wanted. You pissed me off. You can tell your Queen I failed the test.

Sleep on it, Henry, said Smooth with a lazy smile.

Tyler went out and drove all the way west until he was looking down from the freeway to the pavement and dead grass, plastic bags and long low barracks-like docks where San Francisco began, with Coit Tower ahead on its green and white hill, commanding the clouds. — I failed the test, he said aloud, with a jeering despairing smile. Soon it began to rain, and he came to the Tenderloin streets, passing glistening raincoats, loud laughs, fingers pointing at heaven and hell, with rain running down the camo-green crown of a rain-man’s head. He parked and locked, walking around a black man in a soaked wool sweater, a black woman in a black wool cap, swinging her arms, a couple huddled under a scaffold whose ribs were almost glorious with water, tourists with umbrellas like walking mushrooms, until at last he found the tall man.

How’s business, Justin? he said.

You might as well paint your car flaming pink. It makes me sick to see such a faggotty car.

I was wanting to see her if she’s around.

She ain’t, said the tall man.

When will she be around?

I’ll pass it on that you stopped by, the tall man said, darting a glance behind him at a brawny lap-dancer the length of whose blonde hair was somewhere between that of convict-fuzz and pooltable-felt. She was helping the manager put up brand new photos of semi-nude unionized girls on the outer wall. The tall man glared into her eyes, but she pretended not to see.

All right, said Tyler, defeated.

All right what?

Tell her Smooth pissed me off. Tell her, if I failed some kind of test I’m sorry.

Her pager’s only got seven digits, Henry. Better shorten that message.

Oh, fuck you, said Tyler, returning to the driver’s seat.

He drove homeward. His neighborhood exuded an air of unreality and sorrow doubtless unfelt by most of its other residents; surely it was less sorrowful than the Tenderloin. He had forgotten to ask what had become of Sunflower’s body. Perhaps there was no use in asking anything now; Smooth must have put in a bad word for him. How he hated Smooth! The man’s round, goading face floated up feverishly before him. He was like a disease that Tyler had contracted, a venereal disease, painful and shameful, which he must simply endure. But what if he gave it up? He had a quarter; he could telephone John this instant and beg for a ten thousand dollar loan. John would help him even now, for their mother’s sake. He could become something successful. If he relocated to Sacramento, he could take better care of his mother and also hook in with the Capitol politicians, hiring himself out to political action committees who wanted dirt on each other’s senators, or to “ethics” committees whose aim it was to prove some poor victim unethical. Or, better still, he could go to southeast Asia and return with a beautiful bride who resembled Irene. But then he’d have to support her. If only he knew what favor to ask the Queen! Smooth was right. He desired to be healed. What would heal him? Nothing in the Sunset district, that was for sure… Of course there was very little to do on Pacheco, where he lived, but after Pacheco the alphabetical pavements went Quintara, Riviera, Santiago and then Taraval, which was a busy street, at least for the Sunset; it was the mirror image of Clement Street or maybe Geary Street in the Richmond district across the park. Taraval Street sometimes soothed him. Before he knew it, he’d driven there. The habits of his profession made it easy to drive almost aimlessly, round and round as if he were stalking someone, when really he was but circling himself. Closing his eyes, he found himself remembering the old Parkside Theater where he’d once gone alone to watch “The Sorrow and the Pity.” Taraval was largely comprised of Asian establishments now. He’d always wanted to take Irene out to Dragon City Restaurant, but it wasn’t fancy enough for her, he’d feared, so he hadn’t gotten around to it. He’d kept thinking: Someday, when I’m more relaxed and comfortable around Irene… After Dragon City, Taraval rolled down to the foggy ocean, past a Walgreens sign so red in the night, down along fogslimed trolleycar tracks with their empty pedestrian islands; Marco Polo’s was on Twenty-Fourth, right by the coin laundry place that always glowed pale yellow; then pizzerias, and the Tropical Reef at Twenty-Eighth; a huge new Korean restaurant awaited him on Thirtieth that he’d not yet tried; their sign proclaimed that they catered. Well, if he could marry Irene… After the bird hospital he didn’t remember anything until Thirty-Third, where the Elegance Ballroom failed to persuade him. On Thirty-Fifth the Knights of Columbus chapter marked a lower, darker and greyer part; more pizza places, and already his memory had slid down to Forty-First where he almost never saw anyone; the only things which had any existence there were the burning houselights — well, he recollected one hardware store at Forty-Seventh…

Turning back, he pulled up in front of his dark apartment and wished that the Queen were with him holding his hand.

He went upstairs, unlocked the door, turned on the hall light and checked his messages. A Mr. McBean wanted him to trace somebody’s Dominican bank account, provided that Tyler would charge him less than five hundred dollars. He resolved to charge McBean four-fifty. His mother hadn’t called. From the refrigerator he awarded himself a cardboard takeout box imprinted with a red pagoda. He ate the Chinese food cold. It was soggy, salty, spicy and greasy. He couldn’t finish it. He felt nervous. He reclosed the boxflaps and threw the carton into the garbage. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, rinsed off the fork, soaped it, rinsed it again, and set it tines up in the dish drainer. He sat down listlessly in the living room. He didn’t feel like reading. Sighing, he switched on his computer, and watched the hellish white globule of light in the center of the dark green monitor sizzle and replicate until the whole thing had come alive. Accessing MoneyScape, InterQuick, and a pirated version of Full Disclosure, he was able to read and print out the full story of the Dominican bank account. The three searches had cost him fifty-four dollars. He invoiced McBean a hundred and twenty for expenses and three hundred for his labor. Should he charge thirty dollars more for something else, and bring it up to four-fifty? Why bother? He sat there gazing at the screen with burning eyes, feeling weary and useless.

The phone rang.

He checked the clock. It was nearly eleven.

Yeah, he said.

She’ll see you now, said the tall man.

His heart soared. — It’ll take me forty minutes, he said.

That’s fine. Meet me in front of the New Century at midnight sharp.

Then came the click and the harsh, dependable buzz of the dial tone.

So that’s your car, huh? said the tall man. It really is your car. You must have asked me that a million times. Hop in.

Looks like a faggoty car, said the tall man. More I look at it, more I think you got to be some on the faggoty side to own a car like that.

Tell you what, Justin, said Tyler. Why don’t you just grease up your asshole and hop in the back seat and see what happens.

Man, you are pure bullshit, grinned the tall man.

Hey, Justin, do you call all the girls faggots? Don’t they all eat the Queen’s pussy, too?

Now that be different, said the tall man. Queen’s the Queen.

You got that right, Tyler said.

Sapphire always be playin’ with herself, but that bitch ain’t in her right mind. She just pathetic. Domino’s lez, but I got my dick wet inside her one two three times, so she ain’t all lez; she’s part woman, know what I’m sayn’? An’ the others, they’re just the others. Turn left.

What’s your favorite hotel?

Don’t have one. Left again.

What’s your least favorite?

All of ’em.

What’s the best thing that ever happened to you?

The Queen! But I don’t want her to know that. That old bitch’ll be gettin’ a swelled head… Hey, listen, Henry, my man, I can cut you a deal on some kickass indica weed…

Now where?

In here, said the tall man. So long. I gotta make a run.

Tyler was alone in another hotel room with an unmade bed, the wall covered with poems.

Then the Queen came in, and he was happy.

You said you love me, she said.

Yeah, said Tyler.

You don’t love me. Everybody loves me. Nobody loves me.

Let me admit something, Maj. I don’t know anything, not even who I am or what I want or whom I love. I, uh, I confess that up front.

Okay. C’mere. Look at me, Henry. I want you to look at me. What do you really want? You still want that happiness?

What do you mean?

You still don’t understand, huh? Henry, you stupid sometimes. You want that happiness or you want me?

I want both.

Ain’t you just sayin’ that? All rightie then, she said with a sigh. Go over there. You see that closet door? There’s a girl behind that door. Go an’ open that door and take the girl by the hand. Henry, you’re always gonna be my baby. Don’t think I ever wanted to pawn you off. Go an’ get her. That’s right. Bring her to me.

This girl’s gonna be your Irene now, said the Queen very gently, and a strange dark intoxication of sadness rose up from his bowels into his chest, expanding, funneling ever more widely, like smoke as it rises, bracing and almost revitalizing him with the immense, flavorful richness of that pain, loving pain, painful love which he had never felt before, that heart’s rush of anguish comparable only to the uplift from white cracksmoke whistling through the pipe to numb his lips and race his heart like a competition driver’s engine. — Are you all right? Irene sometimes used to say to him on the phone when his voice got sad and slow. You’re my honey, Irene had said. I love you, Irene had said. But then she called him “brother-in-law.”

When the Queen promised to give him another Irene, Tyler had for some reason imagined a beautiful young black girl with gold-dyed hair, but the false Irene was nothing like that.

You look pretty tired, he said. You want to have sex or you want to just sleep?

I want to make love, Irene muttered.

He did it to her and she uttered sleepy moans.

Then she was quiet.

What are you thinking about?

My Mom.

They lay down on the sofa and he reached and turned out the light. The smell of her was like rotten sardines. It got stronger and stronger all night. She laid her head on his shoulder and instantly fell alseep, breathing in rapid shallow little snorts like a child with asthma. Every few minutes she’d awake with a start and mutter: Oh!

Where am I? she said once. Where the hell is this?

You’re with me, he said.

She was already asleep.

He had begun to itch from contact with her body. Tiny insects, imaginary or not, crawled on him.

He dreamed that she was taking a shower but when she finished and began to dry herself off the towel was soaked with stinking blood. He brought her more towels and more, but they ended up in a stained and reeking heap.

All night it was her instinct to bend her knees and rest her stinking feet on his legs. She was so light and so unconscious that he let her do it. In the morning her abscessed thigh was so swollen that she could not arise without tears.

Well, he said, you have anything you want to say to me?

You got thirteen dollars?

Well, here’s five. I can skip breakfast.

You will? Oh, it hurts!

He had to let her lean on him all the way downstairs, and she wept with pain. When they got to the street he held her hand and she walked as she had last night, slowly, painfully, with her head hanging crookedly down and her hair in her eyes. Her gaze was fixed almost like a corpse’s, and thick whitish drool unspooled itself from the left corner of her mouth.

He said to her: We can’t walk in the street like this or you’ll get run over.

I don’t care if I get run over. Shit, it hurts. I don’t give a fuck.

At Seventeenth and Shotwell they intersected with a Mexican family whose members laughed and pointed, the fat teenaged girl especially, making witty comments in Spanish as the false Irene stumbled and wept. A block later, Tyler glanced around and saw that they were still pointing.

His belly itched. An insect was moving on it.

That night he was walking down Eighteenth Street toward Capp when he ran into the false Irene’s smell again, a sickening smell which permeated the sidewalk; then he realized that it was the smell of garbage.

The next morning, passing a car one of whose windows had been kicked out and methodically ground to powder on the sidewalk, he gazed at the grains, at the shockingly beautiful greenness within them which had been liberated by the vandals — there was the car; there were the other windows still intact, mere tinted transparencies giving his eye access to the car’s interior; the radio had been stolen, and larger shards lay dark and dull upon the upholstery-slashed seats — but it was only the pane which had been broken, its surface area increased many fold, which allowed him to see the stuff and essence of that glass, the wonderful greenness now so rich as to trap sight within the opacity of grain heaped on grain.

At that time he trusted entirely in his Queen. He had touched her; how could he doubt her? The false Irene surely comprised not only a medicine but also another test, a pair of royal eyes like some herald sent out to meet a desert caravan and report back to the Big Bitch of Nubia. He had better treat her with every diplomatic attention. Meanwhile no proposals of employment visited his answering machine, although he checked in as conscientiously as Celia ticking off her latest list, which went:

schedule session for approval with ICD

The next time he went by the Queen’s, that crew had moved to a brickwork tunnel under a vacant lot in Chinatown, and it was dawn. — How much money did you gals make tonight? the Queen said. — If it’s money, you’ll see some of it, Domino said. — Henry Tyler again, said the tall man, but the Queen wouldn’t let Tyler in. She said to tell him that he had a mission right now and he should stick to it. Tyler bowed his head, humiliated.

The crazy whore felt sorry for him and scuttled out of the tunnel to explain: They have to greet everybody on the telephone so nobody will get left out. And they have to be sure no bullies will come in. And they have to be sure that every whore who’s got good pussy will get three meals a day. That’s why the Queen’s so busy. I dream of making sure that there’s nothing bothering the lions at the zoo. The Queen says that’s up to me, too. When I take a hit of crack, it makes me feel sure I can stay up forever if I need to, so nobody will get hurt. That’s how I help the Queen. That’s why I’m so busy.

I get it, said Tyler, rubbing his chin.

I get pity for someone like you when someone’s among us and lonely instead of having the right attitude, and they worry why won’t the Queen play with me?

Well, Mary, that’s my worry all right.

The tall man took him aside and said: Henry, lemme give you some advice.

I appreciate it.

That new Irene of yours is no goddamned good. She’s just a crackpipe waiting to be lit. She’s gonna smoke up all your money.

I’ll keep my eye on her.

You never know what’s gonna happen with bitches, the tall man said. Take that Strawberry over there. One day she came at me with a butcher knife when I was on the telephone. A big old knife, round about oh I’d say eight inches long.

And then what? said Tyler, already knowing what he would hear.

I beat that bitch flat on her ass, laughed the tall man. I says to her, Strawberry, you bitch, I’m gonna make you look at me with eyes of fear.

All right.

You’re not gonna do it, are you?

Do what?

Beat that ho flat on her ass.

Probably not.

I knew it. I can smell your goddamned kind. You think you’re better than me?

Nope.

I said, you think you’re better than me?

Oh, dry up. I have nothing against you, Justin. Thanks for trying to help. I figure that—

You’re just a john. You johns are all the same.

Listen, Tyler said. The Queen gave her to me to love and to take care of. Do you get that?

I know. And I said what I said.

Domino! said the Queen suddenly.

Yeah, Maj, what is it?

Do you trust that Tyler?

Hell, no, said Domino.

He went to meet the false Irene, who never appeared. She refused to tell him where she was sleeping. That night as he walked down Sixteenth he felt coming from the blackness of the streets what he could only call a bad energy. His friend Mikey whom he sometimes saw at the racetrack had been a Marine at Iwo Jima; Mikey said that the main thing to keep him alive had been that feeling. When it tingled in his fingertips and made the back of his neck coldly itch, then Mikey knew to duck down or hide until he could see whatever was trying to get him. Something was trying to get Tyler now, something or somebody evil who knew Tyler and was thinking about him and wanted to harm him, something that could see him right now. Maybe it was waiting in that alley up ahead, or maybe it was closing in from behind, intending suddenly to leap upon him and choke him. He leaned his back up against the wall by the bank machine where three or four years ago someone had gotten stabbed to death. Slowly he let his head turn back the way he had come. Past Pancho Villa’s restaurant the street remained very well-lit, swarming with coffee-houses and fancy new restaurants like the Spanish place and the creperie. Nobody was approaching. He allowed his gaze to turn the other way, down toward Mission Street. At the entrance to the subway station three tall and filthy men stared back at him. He was not intimidated. He knew that he could walk right through them and they wouldn’t do anything, because he might be police. Beyond them lay darkness.

It was peculiar how different every night was. Last night and the night before, the Mission had been filled with energetic crowds. Now there was not even a whore to be seen and the streets were almost empty except for the occasional police cruiser. He crossed Mission Street, having passed easily through the group of men, and descended to Capp Street, which stank and was dark; and between Capp and South Van Ness, one black man was helping another walk. The one who was being helped shouted with pain. He had no wound that Tyler could see. There were no whores on South Van Ness, but he passed a succession of doorways in which watchers sat, studying him without friendliness or pity. He didn’t much care. The creepy feeling came, departed, returned.

At Harrison Street he went to call the false Irene’s pager from a very dark pay phone booth beside a warehouse and the pay phone swallowed his quarter and then said he still owed it a quarter; he pressed the change release lever and his quarter slowly ever so slowly dribbled back into his hand. He didn’t like this place. He inserted the quarter again and redialled. The phone was silent like the night without even a dial tone and suddenly he became convinced that the evil person or the evil thing was right here beside him or near enough to be almost here, that it was creeping up on him in the darkness; and he forefingered the change release again, hung up, and walked very quickly out of there. He turned up Mariposa where it was more brightly lit near Project Artaud and the evil one was beside him. From a parked and curtained van there suddenly commenced as he drew level with it a slow, cautious, remorseless creaking as if something were stealthily trying to come out. He walked on quickly. Maybe I’m just getting old, he said to himself, and what I see and fear is my own death. Well, of course that would be the evil thing in any case. It would always be my death, whether it were some reified cancer or heart attack thirty years hence slowly swiming toward me, or a bad person coming to get me right now.

And then he said: The Queen gave her to me. The Queen loves me. She wants to help me. Even if somebody murders me, I have to follow my Queen. I have to accept my gift. I’ve tried everything else.

She was on Seventeenth and South Van Ness at six in the morning, considerably less beautiful than in the dark, exhausted, swollen-eyed, stinking of excrement.

Hey, I feel so bad that I didn’t show that time, she said quickly. You know what happened? I went to Sixteenth and Mission and I couldn’t cop.* I spent two and a half hours trying to cop, until I finally found some stuff that could halfway do it. The hotels all got raided at once. My friend Beatrice — you know her? she works with me sometimes; she’s people; she’s real cool; she’s got spunk — she got so freaked out I found her crying later ’cause the the police just busted into the room next door with rifles and whatever. I think she ran back to the Queen. She told me to come with her but I knew you’d be… Oh, I feel shitty. My leg hurts. And I was so stressed out I just completely forgot about you for four days. Then I remembered, like, hey, that nice guy was waiting on the street corner for me, but by then it was too late. But I knew I’d see you in the neighborhood sooner or later and then I could make it up to you.

Yeah, that’s all right, he muttered.

No, it’s true. Do you believe me? I can prove it. I can verify it.

He was sorry for her, but even more than that he pitied himself for being a mere servile appendage to this decaying body bent only on greedily destroying itself. Again and again, however, he spoke with himself, persuading himself to obey his Queen. He strove to remember and comprehend Sunflower, whom the Queen had pronounced perfect. Did he believe her? Was the Queen perfect? And how could the false Irene be perfect when she was such a slave to her own poisonous needs? In one of the essays, “Civil Disobedience” he thought but John would know for sure, Thoreau had defied his jailer with the statement that no matter where his body might be detained, his mind could wander in and out between the bars as it pleased, like a whore’s dark head flashing back and forth. The serenity, the comforting calmness of this conception had amazed Tyler when he first read it in high school. He’d reflected at that time, and still thought: Even if I end up with nothing, even if I’m starving or physically broken, I retain the freedom of my own self. — He hadn’t, of course. He’d fallen in love with John’s wife. Now he was in the Queen’s orbit. But the false Irene was even worse off, sick and crazed, selfish, isolated by her own addiction. Cut off a man’s airway, or deprive him of sleep long enough, and he will not enjoy Schubert. Most, perhaps all creatures are vulnerable to the despotism of suffering, but the false Irene was more vulnerable still. Her body might wander in and out of the Tenderloin alleys, but her consciousness remained in Thoreau’s cell. She was the jailer of herself, and she’d lost the key. The Queen’s fundamental principle was at fault.

But what if some sacred vapor infused her ecstasies and depths? What if her endless struggle for junk and more junk were a meditation of perpetual equilibrium as valid as Buddha’s stillness on a lotus leaf? What if a brainless sea-sponge which spent its entire life weakly straining food from the currents actually experienced perfect fulfilment because its sensations were unmediated by consciousness? Was this what the Queen meant?

He refused to believe in the goodness of sickness. He longed to worship the false Irene as he had been told, but could not.

Like Lily and the crazy whore and ever so many others, Irene never chose to belong to the Queen’s inner circle. She stayed in the Imperial Hotel on South Van Ness, in a second-storey room whose rent was paid by its other occupant, Sanchez, a seventy-three-year-old Indian originally from Oklahoma who had now been living at the Imperial for three months short of two decades. Throughout that time he had shared his lodging with prostitutes, doubtless for altruistic reasons. Each girl usually lasted two or three months, and then one day Sanchez would come back from the corner store to find her gone and his VCR gone, or her gone and his cassette deck gone; or her gone and his shoes and toilet paper gone. He had had pretty bad luck, Irene thought. Not being cursed with one of those personalities which worries about future calamities, she never wondered whether those girls always left of their own accord. She thought about the past as little as she did the future. Although she believed her mind to be as clear and fine as it had ever been, in fact she could not remember where she had stayed before Sanchez had tottered up to her on that first rainy night on Capp Street when she was cold, wet, hungry and junk-sick, and so Sanchez was God. She had now been with him for twenty-two months. Her superiority to her predecessors had thus been conclusively established, and yet it had taken eight months before she’d felt comfortable unpacking her suitcase, maybe because the room was so small, or perhaps because Sanchez continued silent and almost dark in his moods, unreadable to her, just as she herself was to Tyler. His penis was the most expressive part of him. So it had been on that very first night, which like so many other nights Irene could no longer remember. She spent much of her time on the toilet down the hall, trying to find a vein until somebody else began to pound on the door with both hands. Once when she shot speedball on his bed, Sanchez had struck her. And yet Irene was far from feeling unhappy with her new home. She had never had a sugar daddy before — not that she could recall, at least. Sanchez scarcely asked her anything, and because Irene felt that she had many things to hide, this silence of his gradually transformed its intimations from menace to acceptance. And so she began to indulge herself, leaving Sanchez himself out of her thoughts, considering his room and possessions to be hers. Sometimes if she’d had a good week she used to give him twenty or thirty dollars to help out with the rent, but she didn’t always have a good week and the precedent “put pressure on her,” as she put it, so she stopped. Sanchez didn’t seem to mind.

Now she started considering leaving him to move in with Tyler. The Queen had spoken with her. The Queen said that Tyler was good (which of course could not be unconditionally believed). The Queen said that Tyler needed somebody to take care of. Irene, flattered by her personal audience with the Big Bitch, was trying to figure out which way to jump.

Tyler presented certain disadvantages in comparison to Sanchez. First of all, he was younger — always an inconvenience to street prostitutes who prefer impotent octogenarians. Sanchez had never really been Irene’s old man. Indeed, he’d failed to get it up with her after the first month. All he wanted now was for her to lick his balls, which smelled like pigeons and urine. It was hardly a real sexual relationship. Irene needed to be fucked every so often or she started going crazy. But Tyler might ask too much. She was not well acquainted with him. What if in some fit of stubborn selfishness he insisted on penetrating her past boredom into pain, until he became a positive enemy like the man of rage she’d once serviced who would not let her go until she was almost dead? Worse still, he wanted to talk. Irene considered herself a very private person. Since she had to rent out the space between her legs to anyone and everyone, she reserved the space between her ears, as if it were one of those secret urban gardens which San Francisco offers, with their narrow, half-rotten wooden stairs, ripe plums overhead, everything mossy and full of flowers, a nice view of the Bay Bridge’s blue-grey silhouette. (John once went to look at real estate at one of these greeneries, in the steepest block of Filbert Street at Sansome, but the house was more than three million dollars. Maybe Mr. Rapp had that kind of money.)

When Sanchez met a new prostitute named Angel, Irene became jealous, but talked herself out of feeling that way. She sat on the edge of the bed with her chin in her hands while Sanchez and Angel were fucking. Afterward, Angel approached her with the self-satisfied yet anxious expression of a dog which has just devoured its master’s dinner. — It’s all right, Irene mumbled. I don’t care. — Sanchez looked her up and down in his usual silence. That night Irene began sleeping on the floor. Angel said that Irene had heart. She showed respect, so Irene tried to do likewise. Angel and Sanchez fucked like wild beasts all night. They were so loud and vulgar that Irene was ashamed. She shot every last grain of heroin into her thigh just to put herself out of there, like Thoreau’s untamed soul flying loftily away. In the morning she was alive again, on the floor, with scabies, sick with the need to fix. She went out and peddled pussy on Capp Street for two hours with no luck, but then Tyler paged her and gave her ten dollars.

Angel was a tall good-looking darkskinned girl who had probably been truly pretty once before she got her habit. Irene began to feel shy in front of her. She waited to learn whether Sanchez would speak to her at last, commanding her to leave; in fact, she almost hoped for that, because then necessity would instruct her exactly what to do, whereas right now she did not completely trust Tyler even though she had become accustomed to Tyler’s money. But Sanchez never said a word. Unable to abandon this sanctuary, Irene determined to make Angel “feel welcome,” which is to say that she strove to play on the shadow of hostess-power she retained due to Sanchez’s taciturnity and her own seniority. She said to her: Sweetie, welcome to our house. (Sanchez smiled ironically.) — Treat it like a home, Irene babbled on. If you need something, just ask. We have a few rules, but only a few.

The first rule was never to open the window because their room lay only one storey up from and directly over an alley of garbage which in summer stank much worse than Irene and therefore disguised her so that she lived easily with the old man, who could scarcely perceive odors anyway because he chain-smoked. Sanchez had kept that cracked and dusty light-hole sealed for most of his twenty years of residence. Indeed, the paint had long since sweated, becoming glue so that had he ever longed for a breath of dumpster-air he would have first been forced to run the point of a putty-knife along the sash… Sometimes it got a little stuffy in there, as Irene delicately put it, and then he turned on the fan.

Thus ran the main rule, but Sanchez was equally particular about certain other matters. He disliked anyone to knock on his door. Also, he hid his treasures, and expected them not to disappear. Angel of course immediately began going through his wallet whenever she could, her grubby fingers twitching at high speed. Irene had sometimes done the same, but only to give back the money to show him how honest she was — minus five or ten dollars, of course, which she needed for expenses. Sanchez comprehended this and tolerated it; otherwise he would have hidden his wallet. Wasn’t it really an invitation to Irene to take whatever she required, if Sanchez left his wallet on top of the dresser at night instead of sliding it under his side of the mattress along with his special things? Irene, believing this in utter confidence, flourished therefrom like a modest righteous flower blooming from the edge of a heap of dung. Angel, however, instantaneously began abusing the wallet privilege.

The next thing she did was to ask to use the phone. Sanchez, needless to say, made no reply. — Sure you can use the phone, sweetie, said hostess Irene, and Sanchez grinned sarcastically.

Can I, um, give my mother this number? Angel wanted to know.

Sure, said Irene. Sanchez sighed and kept quiet.

Well, um, can I also, um give this number to my boyfriend?

Sure, answered indulgent Irene. But don’t give it out to everyone. Sanchez and I are trying to make you feel special. Not very many people have this number, sweetie, and we’re trying to keep it that way.

After that, all Angel’s business dates kept calling day and night. Sanchez’s sister had to go into the hospital for triple bypass surgery and Sanchez was waiting for the doctor to call him and tell him how the operation had gone, but Angel stayed on the telephone for two hours. Finally Irene had to tell her to get off. Angel freaked out. She called Irene a rotten cunt and disinvited her from living with her and Sanchez. So Irene spat in her face. Angel shouted out to Sanchez to defend her, but Sanchez merely picked his nose. — Why, you lazy old fucker! cried Angel. You — you — why do old men always get so greasy? — Her accusation was not entirely truthless, at least in the case of its target, because Sanchez always tried to make his clothes last as long as he could, to save money. Irene wasn’t that way. Like most of us, male and female, she considered herself to be clean in body and soul. Nobody, including Tyler, ever told her that she reeked. She sometimes went to thrift stores even if for reasons of addiction she should have been dating instead. That proved her desire to present herself nicely in society, a magnificent Christmas present for anyone who could pay. Sanchez, on the other hand, wore his clothes for a week or more at a time. It might well have been that he smelled; Irene was the wrong one to ask…

Angel promised never to bring any business home. Soon, tall lustful men were pounding on Sanchez’s door at all hours.

Sweetie, please don’t tell lies in my house, said Irene, believing in the present necessity of abrasive words.

What do you mean? said Angel with a false smile. I was in jail, I really was; I swear it—

Yeah? Then where’s your plastic bracelet? Where’s your papers?

You know what, cunt? It’s not your house. Not no more.

When Angel finally persuaded Sanchez to throw her out, Irene was crushed. Strangely enough, it was the old man whom she hated more than Angel, even though the latter was the precipitating agent of her destruction. On her last morning in the Imperial Hotel, convinced that Sanchez had been scheming to bring about her departure all along, she refused to say goodbye to him, but embraced Angel, sobbing like a child. — It won’t be so bad, honey, Angel said. You’ll find a new home, I know you will! And we’ll meet on the street. It’s gonna be just like old times… — Irene gripped Angel even more tightly, and here the Queen’s intuition about her proved entirely true, because at that moment, even if only for that moment, she was willingly and proudly embracing her own degradation, like a Christian on the cross. And perhaps what she intended for Tyler (although one can never be sure about anything concerning the Queen) was for him to take to himself the embodied shame of Irene’s self-distraction, loving somebody who would be bad for him. And yet how depressing, indeed repulsive these plans for another appear, when we spell them out like this! Tyler, of course, had humbly laid his life in the Queen’s hands; it was incumbent on her to do something with it. As for Irene, incapable almost of choice, haunted by the insult she received, fearful of that grimy and dangerous street life which had now reclaimed her, she went silently down the stairs until for the last time she passed through the lobby, and the desk clerk wrinkled his nose. Then she left the Imperial Hotel forever. Suddenly dreading above all the possibility that Angel and Sanchez might be watching out the window, she refused to look back, and for this pride I admire her, especially when she would have done anything to be allowed to return. What then? She hobbled to Capp Street, clutching all her belongings against her stomach in a trash bag, which with extreme tentativeness she concealed in a garbage can. With its bruises, varicosities, scars, scabs, burns, bites and abscesses, her flesh resembled one of those Hungarian sausages which offers the buyer all the splendid colors of autumn: astonishing oranges from paprika, scarlets as delicious as any dead maple leaf, yellow pebbles of fat. But who would buy her? What would she do? It was only ten in the morning, and she was already beginning to feel junk-sick. Terrified of what would happen if she didn’t cop some heroin very very soon, she set out on a hunt for sanctuary, not knowing exactly what she was looking for, praying she would recognize it when she found it. Unlike Beatrice, who conversed with the Virgin in her straits, Irene retained no one to pray to but herself. Her ancient, bloodshot eyes saw the black-and-white come rolling from around the corner, and she was already shambling on before the police could accuse her of peddling pussy at that infamous corner. Today no one would help her to continue existing, and for her to pursue salvation through the one trade she could practice was to become a criminal, a temporary betrothed. She considered going to live with the Queen as Beatrice had advised, but she had been given to understand by Domino, who wished to keep the club exclusive, that the Queen was a very difficult and dangerous old bitch who sometimes cut women’s eyes out, and that her kindness to Irene during their private interview had been a treacherous device. Irene trusted Domino more than Beatrice, because given two tales, the most frightening one was generally in her experience the truest. She had now put almost four blocks between her and the Imperial Hotel. Exhausted, she sat down on somebody’s front step and cried again. Although the heroin need grew nauseatingly inside her from moment to moment, more than anything she worried about the terrible pain in her leg which made it so difficult to walk. The hospital had told her that she had two blood clots. Irene wondered whether this had something to do with the fact that heroin had stopped her periods and somehow sent the bad blood from her womb into her legs. They’d given her some anticoagulant pills, but when her left leg started feeling better she quit out of a principle of general distrust, the bottle only half empty (and she was supposed to get three more refills); then her right leg began to hurt. She wanted to go to S.F. General and perhaps if she won extraordinary luck sleep that night in a high metal bed with clean sheets, but she had to earn ten dollars first, understanding all too well that even if she’d reported to the waiting room early in the morning (and it was no longer early), no doctor would see her until late afternoon, by which time she wouldn’t be able to handle the scanning and palpitating and poking unless she’d shot up in the ladies’ room. And how could she do that, without ten dollars? Ten dollars would save her or damn her! She tried to explain this to Tyler but he didn’t understand; it was as if he didn’t listen or something… (In fact, what she had said to him was: You see, I’m daydreaming. You see, I’m nodding. If I coulda had some coke instead of straight heroin I wouldn’t be nodding like this. I was a little more cool than my classmates. So I always hung around with people who… And I asked my mother… But she wouldn’t lemme… just make a joke about it… and then I told ’em — I told ’em…) Irene never felt so abandoned by God as she did that day. Ten dollars! She staggered all the way from Sixteenth up to Twenty-First in hopes of performing a ten-dollar blow job so that she could purchase white medicine from the tall man, who ran a side business outside the Queen’s circuit, but nobody would pick her up because she stank. Ten dollars! Closing her eyes, she could see her heroin spoon, not too thick, not too thin; she tapped the needle because even though she’d only used it once they were now cutting heroin with shoe polish, which gummed up the point. She could see it; she could taste it. Ten dollars! Forgetting all about her possessions in the trash can, she dragged herself far beyond the drunken swaggerers who were now too drunk to do anything but sit on their overturned shopping cart. Irene asked them: Hey, can you spare just five or ten cents? It would really make my day. That’s all I need. — They gave her nothing. A man in mechanic’s coveralls was coming, so Irene asked him: Can you spare just fifteen cents? and he walked by her. Ten dollars! Irene rounded the curve of a passed-out drunk’s buttock on the reddish sidewalk-tiles in front of Walgreens—Walgreens! she was going the wrong way! Turning around, she discovered an auto repair shop, then two more shopping carts side by side with a foam mattress folded over them both to marry them, clocks and towels and blankets stained with wine-flavored urine and stuffed animals tucked beneath them in what to Irene was utter senselessness. She passed Chocolate, who was prancing back and forth on Capp Street like a spirited warhorse, holding her white parka in her arms as she streetwalked because she didn’t want it stolen. Chocolate and Irene did not say hello to one another. She passed Justin, who leaned with his empty hand behind his back. At last she came to a weary black man’s blue stubble glowing like a patch of tiny alpine flowers as he slept under the subway lights. The palm of his hand was incredibly expressive. Ten dollars, ten dollars! She was as wide open as Mission Street with its palm trees rising above squarish brickwork and woodwork. She passed Strawberry, who was scratching her forehead as she pulled her hair back, leaning against brickwork, urgently watching each car. Irene had irrevocably lost count of Strawberry before she even saw her. A quarter-hour later, the Queen emerged from the Thor Hotel with a cigarette in her mouth and her hands in her pockets; Irene did not see her. It was sunset now, and the sharp stench of urine on the sidewalk focused her consciousness like smelling salts applied to a fainting woman. If she only had ten dollars… Irene stumbled through bright bristling palms and fish markets and supermarkets and murals, spied on by informers with pawnshop eyes. Then she walked some more, her teeth sunk deep in her lower lip so that she would not scream with pain. Was she free like Buddha? Finally she remembered Tyler.

Tyler was drunk. Tyler was in need like Domino marching down the streets in her silver miniskirt muttering to herself: I gotta get me some bump.* —He said: All I have now is my pain, Irene. That’s all that ties me to you. Without that cord, I’d fall into the abyss of senseless happiness.

The false Irene, who barely heard him and was sure that he had no conception of what pain was, said: Can I stay with you?

Let’s see how it goes, he said. He had faith, but not so much. He was afraid that her stench would infect his apartment forever. He feared that she would steal his computer and try to sell it. God knows what she would do…

You mean you don’t care about me? The Queen promised you’d take care of me… And I… You see, if I could just cop some china white…

What is it you want, baby?

He was so shallow. He knew what she needed, and he would not give it to her. Look at him! He had nice shoes! If he cared for her, he could sell his shoes. He must have money in his wallet. If he would only give her ten dollars, just ten dollars… That was what her happiness cost.

Well, my connection got busted, she began to explain, making a great effort to help him comprehend, and… and after the raid, I didn’t know anyone to cop from, so me and Domino, we had to go downtown to meet someone on Turk Street…

Oh, come on, said Tyler. Domino cops from the Queen.

All right, so I was lying to you, said Irene. I don’t know why I lied, I just… Hey, you got any money on you?

Remember you said that I didn’t have to have sex with you if I didn’t want to? said Irene. Well, I’m thinking that maybe I won’t have sex with you tonight, because I’m starting to like you and I want to see…

Okay, sweetheart.

Thanks for the ten dollars. I really appreciate it. You saved my life, Kenny.

Henry.

Oh, did you say your name was Henry? I thought you… Listen, I gotta go. I need more heroin. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes and then we can just cuddle, okay? I’ll whistle outside your window. Don’t worry. You’ll wake up. You ain’t never heard me whistle.

The darkness about them was close and cool and stone-flavored like a cathedral’s, and within it, like candles offered to the memories of souls, glowed the flames of many crack pipes. The happy sense of love, of trust, of grateful sharing between two people who have just smoked crack together temporarily allowed him to believe in her. (He had a sudden memory of Irene rushing about most soundlessly in stockinged feet on the carpet at John’s place, making dinner. He’d become agitated, as was usually the case whenever he had to see Irene. But he never showed it. He remembered Irene standing with her left hand on her hip, clicking the remote control, her lips parted as she gazed at the crawling colors in the TV. He could see her sitting on the carpet, dialling John’s portable phone, her dark lips parted, smiling politely at him but withdrawn; he knew that she was irritated at something. He remembered her high small breasts.) She kept giving him more hits of crack and he kept rubbing her neck.

She kissed him on the lips and said: I never kiss.

You got any more money? she said.

(Tyler stood in the locked bathroom, counting his money from the nylon under-the-pants moneybelt which smelled like his balls. The false Irene was moaning and snoring.)

Okay, she mumbled. I gotta go. I need my medicine. I’ll be right back.

She didn’t come back, of course.

He loved the false Irene with sincere desperation for more than three weeks.

In the fourth week he was walking past Sixteenth and Capp at around nine in the morning and saw Angel, although he did not know that she was Angel; then he spied Lily across the street, thin and false-blonde, with her hair, skin and clothes all grey and pitted like an old barn door or a hammer which had been left outside in an Arctic wind for years and years; she was standing on the corner, looking patiently at every passing car, and seeing him Lily smiled and waved until he waved; then she strutted halfway over to him with her miniskirt riding high up her hips and her hairy thighs all crusted with some yellow substance, so for politeness he approached her and she came closer and soon was at his side.

How about the morning special? said Lily.

What’s that? said Tyler, taken aback.

Ten dollars.

Ten dollars for a blow job, I guess, he thought.

Well, how about if I buy you coffee? he said, anticipating that good happy coffee feeling, the same feeling almost as of crack cocaine.

She was already starting to move back to her corner, just a step or two back so that she might still be able to return quickly to get something out of him, and looking coolly into his eyes she said: Well, you could just give me a dollar. That would work.

That’s Domino’s line, he laughed.

Oh, her. She’s full of one-liners, but I’m better. My hole’s better. You wanna see my hole?

One of these days, Lily.

Well, then, how about that dollar?

How about when I see you? he said, not wanting to give her anything if she wouldn’t even sit with him for a minute, not that he blamed her.

Fine.

Do you remember me? he hazarded.

I know I’ve seen you before. I just…

I’m Henry.

Henry? Oh, that’s right. You’re Maj’s…

How’s the Queen?

She said to ask about you, but I forget what she wanted me to ask. I bear so many messages at so many times, and sometimes the first message overshadows the last message, because I…

Tell her I’m trying really hard but I’m having problems. Can you remember that, Lily?

A dollar would sure help my memory…

Every morning Lily went out to Capp Street walking skinny and crusted, spookily laughing from her tired cunt unmuffled by any underwear; then Domino usually came and started yelling as she did every night: Bitch, bitch bitch, you stole ten dollars off me, bitch! and Lily just squatted there on the curb, ignoring her, so Domino kicked her onto her ass and triumphantly laughed: Bitch! while Lily laughed, gurgled and cycled like an old dishwasher in some not yet vandalized apartment, remembering her black nightgown in which she always used to do business because she thought that it made her more pretty; in fact it got so that she didn’t like to take it off even during a fuck because it made her look and feel so special. Some customers disagreed, but Lily knew that even if she wouldn’t fuck naked they were nonetheless happier in her company than alone, especially because in those days she had a nice thing that she did for the men (like Sunflower or the Queen, she wanted to give them all something). She would spread a rubber sheet on the mattress and grease it, and then tell the john to take off his pants and everything else and lie down on his back on the greased rubber sheet while she went to mix him a free drink, and afterward she’d give out her choice of one of three nude photos of her, which she’d then package in an Amaretto box; but so many times the men said: Hey, I’m married, I don’t want no photo of some hooker, so then she started saying: And if you’re not married you can have this if you want… but even then they sometimes worried that it might be incriminating, so Lily learned to say more tentatively: Well, if you’re not married and if you don’t think it would incriminate you, I can give you a picture of me, but half the time after the men had left and she went outside to get some milk and tomato soup for her mother she’d find the nude picture of her lying on the street, or jocularly stuck behind a stranger’s windshield wiper, or face-up or face-down in the trash.

Did that make you sad? Sunflower had asked her.

Sad! choked Lily, laughing and crying. Hell, no. But it made a lot of other people sad. Ugly me, and my ugly pussy, saddening people all through the neighborhood…

She continued to wear her black nightie because she knew it made her into the most beautiful girl. Somehow that nightie was magic. Okay, so on request she’d lift it above her weary breasts but it never came off when she was doing men, never, ever, especially after she started to get older (well, almost never; sometimes she might relent if a man tipped her), until after a while it began to look and smell a million years old and the men started making comments, so she went to the five and dime and found another just like it, being a creature of habit in more than one way. That find made her very happy. She took the old black rag, threw it into her favorite dumpster, and wore the new black rag. When it ripped, she trimmed it into a miniskirt like Beatrice’s; Bea had shown her how…

Meanwhile Domino stood halfway down the block, showing tit and whistling. Humiliating Lily always put her in a fine mood. That bitch was so out of it, so perpetually robbed and broken, that she’d never tell Maj. Truth to tell, Lily really had borrowed ten from Domino and shot it into her veins, so we cannot accuse the blonde, who needed money as much as anyone, of being evil — Domino wasn’t that, merely mean.

So what’s new? said Domino, each of whose eyes resembled in hue the blue star which said S.F.P.D. on the white door of the black police car with its shiny twin upturned mirrors like mandibles and its blocky multicolored roof-light.

Oh, you remember that cat I had? the false Irene said.

That little shit? chuckled Domino. How could I forget?

Hey, that’s my cat you’re talking about.

That’s your diseased pussy I’m talking about, the blonde muttered to herself.

Oh, fuck you, said the other whore.

All right, fine. What about your darling cat? Wasn’t that like a year ago you had that cat?

I think I told you that it was one of two that they had at this clubhouse. And the other, this Samoan gangster stomped it to death. So when they got the next litter, I took all three. I figured I could sell them to some friends. And I got money for two, but I had to take them back, because the two girls I sold them to weren’t taking decent care of them. And one had a litter, so now I have eight cats. That’s my news.

Pretty stupid, said the blonde. How much do you spend on catfood?

Oh, shit, Domino! Catfood’s not good enough for them. I feed ’em fresh milk and chicken breast, said that wrinkled old whore who never ate decent food herself.

You have eight cats, huh? I just bet.

Come on to my house. I’ll bake you a cake.

A greedy light came into the blonde’s eyes at the thought of free food, and she thought to herself: This bitch makes fifty-sixty dollars a day because she represents herself. No Queen’s cut. She’s got her own place; she’s got her red light. I cannot deal with this. I gotta… — Where are you staying, honey? she purred.

I… I… Oh, this john named Henry… See where he… Hey, Dom, I feel faint. I need to cop. I need to take a leak…

So all that stuff about cats was just bullshit, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? You’re just another stinking homeless tramp. You’d better run, honey. You’d better run fast and far. You know why? Because if the Queen sees you, she’s going to cut out your eyes…

Screaming, the false Irene fled as fast as she could, step by shaking step, all the way to Magic Burgers & Donuts on Twentieth and Mission (OPEN 25 HOURS, said the sign), and then from inside her greasy bra she fished out four quarters with her blackened hands so that she could buy a doughnut and sit inside for an hour to hide and lurk and weep, while Domino laughed, her hands on her hips, and swaggered up and down Capp Street like the queen of the entire world.

You over thirty-five? said the old man at Muddy Waters coffeeshop, where Tyler had ultimately gone without Lily, and without giving Lily a dollar, either, being akin to Domino who in the course of business games which called into play all her calibrations of volition and capability could rapidly compute the prudence of any given expense. Tyler had computed that the dollar would be wasted. So he sat at a table drinking espresso as rich and reddish-brown as Chocolate’s flesh, wondering what to do. Perhaps this old man could see this, and was the latest incarnation of Christ come to help him, for as long as Tyler was willing to entertain such ideas about the Queen of the Whores, why not believe similar nonsense about any stranger?

Yeah, he said, waiting for the pitch.

Then marry for money, not for love, the old man advised. Love you can always pick up someplace else. It won’t last, so marry for money.

Good thinking, said Tyler, draining his espresso.

Some girl wants to marry me, but I says to her, I’m choosy. I like to pick my own wife, and that don’t mean you! the old man concluded gleefully.

Mm hm, said Tyler.

Having proven that he was the boss in this world, that not just any woman could have him, the old man went cheerfully back to his vocation, which was panhandling. On the way out, Tyler handed him a quarter.

He was so lost now like Dante’s pilgrim at the very beginning of the Inferno that this new love of his, which perhaps we should simply call an engagement, had already split his life into many additional doublings and halflings through which he wandered as if through a maze of dripping ice-caverns, the terrible directionlessness of his journeying growing and growing before him like concretions of solid hydroxic acid which his touch could melt only a little and so he felt wearily frozen, unable to visualize either his future or his past. Everything was good and bad together. Everything was mixed together like Domino’s grey strands of hair amidst the blonde. In other words, his way had become as open to the lamplight of all possibilities as the Mission, where you can leave the drug dealers literally waiting at the door when you go into some bluegrass-riddled bookstore or other to admire the acquerelles of Moreau or the engravings of Dan Smooth. Only a native California psychic can see all the way to the freeway sign which says LAST SF EXIT. Only a fast-talking Tenderloin girl can see half a block ahead to the car that might be slowing down, and so she’ll run out into traffic, beckoning, muttering: Come on, come on, come on… — Did Tyler stand on the threshold of infinity or of a narrow grave? How could he advance a step, not knowing? He remembered the time that Irene had gotten lost in traffic when she was supposed to meet his mother and John for the weekend in Sacramento, and when she arrived two hours late she stood outside the door for another fifteen minutes, too afraid to go in. Inside, the three of them had just finished their cold dinner. It was Tyler who found her, when he went out in the dark to empty the trash.

Please, you go in first, Irene whispered. Her eyes were as clear as light bulbs reflected in a drop of spilled tequila on the bar.

Oh, come on, he said. Nobody’s mad at you.

Laying his palm between her shoulderblades, he nudged her in. John refused to speak to her.

Shot of tequila, he said.

Shot of to kill ya? laughed the barmaid. Okay.

How was your day, Loreena?

Well, for starting out slow, I can’t complain. Made almost two hundred bucks for greedy old Heavyset.

An hour ago, Strawberry’s face had been tilted, her mouth hanging open, her eyes swollen as she wept over the baby she’d lost in crib death eleven years ago, and gravity pulled down the side of her face. Now her head lay on her clenched fists on the bar, her long, greying hair blanketing her naked shoulders. The barmaid gently shook her, calling her sweetheart, but she didn’t wake up. Tyler drank on in silence. The barmaid sighed and went to the cash register. — She’s been here a helluva long time, she finally said to the Queen, who replied: She’s dreamin’ about her pain, Loreena. — The barmaid laughed as if that were a joke, and yelled into Strawberry’s ear: Fire, FIRE, FIRE! but Strawberry didn’t move. The barmaid sighed again. Tyler ordered another drink. The Queen smiled at him, gliding out into the Tenderloin night. The serious old john gazed patiently down at Strawberry, and his chin wobbled as Strawberry ground her nose into the bar and slept harder.

Give her about another half hour, the barmaid said to the world. When thirty minutes exactly had passed, she said: Strawberry, honeybunny! and made a kissing sound, but Strawberry didn’t move. — I have to start serving now, she said to the john. Would you kind of keep an eye on her until Laura comes on at six? ’Cause Laura will give her a hard time. You gotta get her up before then.

Strawberry woke up suddenly, sweating and nauseous, and weakly patted her john.

I was a little worried about you, he said.

The tall man came in and said: Somebody buy me a drink or I’m gonna shoot this whole fuckin’ goddamn place up!

Oh, take a chill pill, said Loreena.

Awright, I’m gonna start shootin’ then. Henry, what’s goin’ on, my man?

Not much, said Tyler.

Still drivin’ that faggotmobile?

Naw, I stuck my dick up the exhaust pipe just like you taught me and the damn car went and exploded on me.

You too fuckin’ much — heh, heh! Anybody else talk to me that way, they be takin’ a trip to the emergency room.

Strawberry opened one eye, her purse strap clenched into her fingers as she muttered into her arms. Loreena leaned back against the register, stuck out her paunch, coughed, and laughed ha-ha-ha from her fat flushed face.

How ya doin’, kid? the tall man asked her.

Fucked up.

Well, what else is new?

Justin…

What?

Justin, will you follow me anywhere I go?

Well, not anywhere, laughed the tall man, kissing her.

You know what? said weary-eyelidded Strawberry. I’m sorry I’m drunk. I’m fucked up. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Don’t worry about it, the tall man said.

I’m sorry.

Tyler started chuckling sadly in the corner.

Why are you laughing? asked Strawberry painfully.

Oh, something weird happened to me, Tyler said.

Pathetic, said the tall man, walking out.

Tell me. Why are you laughing?

Just a funny thing, he said.

Tell me, said the whore, struggling upright while her john watched over her as anxiously as a father overseeing his baby’s first steps.

Well, I fell in love with somebody I shouldn’t have fallen in love with.

And what happened? Strawberry patiently asked.

I won’t be seeing her anymore.

(Even I know about Henry and his Oriental girl, said Loreena complacently.)

Are you hurting? Strawberry asked him.

Huh?

I said are you hurting?

Yeah. Yeah. I guess so.

She stared at him with her heavy-lidded eyes. She was sorry for him.

Oh, hell, he muttered.

She nuzzled up to the complacent old john, who’d just bought her a hamburger. The john put his arm around her, and she flinched.

Irene had once given him a spare key, but it would have been just like his brother to change the lock. Tyler didn’t even know where that key was anymore. He drove over and rang the bell twice just to make sure that no one was there. Then he sprayed oil into the lock and worked a half-diamond pick against the pin stacks until they’d all dropped, one at a time. Fifteen seconds. He was belly-up against the glass front door so that from behind no one could see what he was doing. He counted the clicks of the falling pins: a six-pin lock, which come to think of it he had already known. Now for the tension wrench. That was the part he always enjoyed. Twenty-five seconds. He eased the hook pick all the way to the back of the cylinder, as gently as if he were penetrating a virgin; slow and careful, metal sliding lovingly deeper into metal, until he reached the uterine wall, so to speak. Now, slowly, slowly, raise the bottom pin above the shearline. Thirty-five seconds. That pin was picked; five more to go. In slightly under two minutes he had the job done. He slipped his wrench and picks back into his pocket and opened the door. Three carpeted steps, then a left turn hallway to the elevator. John lived on the sixth floor. The apartment was double-locked, so it took him more than five minutes to get in.

There would have been no point in going to the clothes hamper anymore, of course; all he would have gained was his brother’s smell. The bedroom door was open, the bed unmade (Irene had always made it every morning). He went to the bottom drawer of the dresser which had once been a treasurehouse of her bras and panties scented with rose petal sachets and cedar wood. Empty. He should have known it. (In old Korean custom the brother-in-law must never enter the sister-in-law’s chamber.) John had not been slothful there. Then desperately he went into the living room, thinking that at least he might steal a photograph from their wedding album; he could always cut John out. Over the fireplace the eight-by-ten of John and Irene still commanded him by means of what he had always been convinced was a false double smile, but beside that now stood in a silver frame a photo of Celia — an old photo, evidently, which she must have given John, for she looked much, much younger; a breasty young girl in a loose blouse, her head tossed back, her arms at her sides but just beginning to reach out at the world: a self-conscious picture of a girl who really wanted to let herself go and didn’t know how to do it, a would-be narcissistic picture, and ultimately a very sad one.

Those last few months when Irene spoke to him on the phone in a sad and anxious whisper, he could have done something. Now there was nothing to do, nothing, nothing.

On the shelf beneath the television, he saw Irene’s Korean — English New Testament, which her mother had given her shortly before her marriage. Tyler lifted it, vaguely hoping that one of Irene’s long black hairs might have gotten caught in it. The place marker-ribbon was at Ephesians 5.14:

Therefore it is said:

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead,

and Christ will give you light.

He felt a lump in his throat.

Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, Smooth whispered.

Yeah, yeah, said Tyler. Lest his deeds be punished. That’s in John 3 somewhere, isn’t it? John’s in the Bible. All johns are in the Bible. You think private eyes don’t know that one?

All right, said Smooth with the utmost lordliness. Now I want you to tell me. What did her piss smell like?

Tyler cleared his throat. — Like fresh vitamin tablets, he said in a trembling voice.

Okay, that’s a start. You want me to find you some fresh female piss like that? I’ve got sources.

Dan, I know you mean well, but I don’t think—

And there you were on some kind of goddamned panty raid, as if you were a college frat boy! Smooth roared. You’re a panty-sniffer and you’re saying that fresh piss won’t help! Just how do you explain that contradiction?

I don’t feel like explaining it.

In his mind he now heard Irene’s voice. After quitting a temporary job at a travel agency, she’d said to him: They’re such cruel people! Sometimes I think I gotta be trying harder, but I don’t know what they want… — At that time he had felt sorry for her, and hated the people who had been cruel to her. But now he was surprised to experience within himself a sharp anger at Irene. It seemed to him now that she had always complained, that she had shopped for her victim’s attire as she would have shopped for anything else. And who had forced her to? He hated Irene! Was that why he now longed to part from the false Irene?

You know I have an in with the coroner’s office, Smooth was saying. I got some autopsy photos of her for you. They’re under the floormat on the driver’s side of your car…

Thanks, Dan, he said wearily. I know you have a good heart. How does she look?

She’s got a real peaceful expression on her face, Smooth said. You know, like she’s glad to be out of it. And her breasts, well, you know I’m not ordinarily a tit man, but I think you’ll like those photos. But the ones after they started to cut her open, well, I only gave you the crotch shots. I didn’t want to make you feel bad.

That afternoon Tyler was walking down Seventeeth past the Uptown Bar on Capp, and saw across the street a police car with flashing lights and then the cop’s back and shoulders and helmet; the cop was doing something to someone — yes, of course, to a scared young girl in a miniskirt. He was twisting the girl’s hands painfully behind her back, looping and knotting the strap of her purse around her wrists before he put the cuffs on. Tyler crossed the street and slowly passed the two actors. Gazing backward as he went, he could now see the girl’s scarred and pimpled face shining with tears. Something about her quivering lip made his heart ache through and through. It was Strawberry.

Hold still, the cop commanded. Hold still.

I am, the girl sobbed.

Tyler turned away and walked on, shocked to realize that he hated the cop, hated him not as a man but as a function. He thought he could understand now how terrorists could justify killing people. The cop was probably not a bad man. But what he was doing was wrong. He was hurting this girl who had hurt no one. Tyler didn’t look back. He was too sickened.

Of course she’s no angel either, said Smooth, who now telephoned him every day and who always stuck up for cops. That officer might have been having a bad day, see. And maybe he’s seen her rob people, or maybe someone like her gave him some shit…

I guess she does have an attitude sometimes, he dully agreed.

How’s married life?

It’s not going so well.

Hang in there, Henry. Show some responsibility. Irene’s yours. She depends on you. And you have to obey the Queen…

Every night the false Irene was always in the bathroom for a very long time, not unlike the dead Irene who used to spend a good half hour on makeup every morning, and with entirely consistent motives sat with the television on, reading in one of her women’s magazines about how to tell if a man was lying (this article having been written by a traitor to his sex who sought to ingratiate himself), or why electrolysis must be considered the best choice for removing hairs from a woman’s upper lip, although shaving remained preferable for legs and armpits, while depilatory creams were comme il faut for the bikini line. To Tyler, free from the necessity to master such processes, these directives partook of comedy — still more so thanks to their very solemnity. (Irene for her part had always been amused by Tyler’s subservience to cameras, and his craving to browse the incoming books at City Lights — friends and oracles to him, to her alien trash.) We all like to know the latest things. And even if there were no latest things and the magazine articles all repeated each other, still, Irene was so interested in the subject of beautification (which, after all, stands next to beatification in importance) that she could not stop reading about it, just as a man who knows pretty well what sex is cannot stop driving down to Capp Street every Saturday — doubtless for verification purposes only. Yes, the real Irene spent her life in the bathroom — and so did the false Irene, but only to shoot up. For this reason, bathrooms not infrequently reminded Tyler of the dead Irene. About two months before her end he had driven over at John and Irene’s on a Sunday morning, more anxious than pleased to have been invited. Yes, he’d see Irene, but they’d be constrained — and what if John sat between them? Irene was pretending to be wholesomely contented. Tyler pretended that his financial affairs were prospering. They would go out for brunch as soon as John got off the phone. On the coffee table, one of Irene’s magazines lay open to an article which explained how a woman could tell if her best friend were really not her best friend. — I can’t guarantee that, John was saying. — Tyler went to use the bathroom, from which Irene had just emerged, and in which she would soon kill herself. Longing so bitterly for her that he almost departed his body, he closed the door, raised the toilet lid while the television warned and whined down the hall, turned on the fan, like a whore in a Tenderloin hotel trying to drown out the sounds of her commerce — and then, his fly already unbuttoned, saw beneath the sink the wicker hamper of dirty clothes. (Remembering all this later, he understood Dan Smooth all too well.) Irene, Irene, Irene! Tyler made sure that the bathroom door was locked. He lifted the cover and most happily found on top of the pile a pair of Irene’s panties fresh from last night. He knew from Irene that she and John didn’t make love anymore, so he was not afraid of encountering his brother’s spoor. Along that slender white strip of polyester which had been between Irene’s legs he found what Dan Smooth would have gloried in: a tiny blot of gold. But raising the panties to his face and inhaling deeply, even there he could not smell Irene, only a faint odor of perfume that masked whatever human scent there might have been. Almost in a rage, he smelled the panties again and again. But there was nothing.

Beloved and miscast Tyler paid Irene out of next month’s rent money, then headed for a Mexican restaurant on Seventeenth and Mission which he hadn’t tried. Passing one skinny shrieking black Mr. AIDS, he entered a world of carne asada smells and trumpet music powerful enough to lift him into heaven, with Spanish or Mexican girls on the walls showing their breasts and flashing their rears. At the tables, men slowly crammed burritos into their jaws. Domino came in with her bag of laundry, clopp-clopping, flashing her long, scarred legs; there was the eye-shaped bullet scar, there the motorcycle scar in he’d once rubbed the locator fluid. He waved, and she grinned at him, which was how he learned that she was now missing a tooth.

What news? he said.

Getting dinner to go, the whore replied with a yawn.

The meat cleaver chattered on the blood-hued cutting board.

Just getting started today, Domino?

Uh huh.

She pulled her dress away from her collarbone, and peered down into her bra, her lips moving. He realized that she was counting her money. When she had concluded this operation, she scanned the counter with a scowl, and, seeing that her burrito remained unfinished, which meant that the next two or three minutes would be wasted anyhow, poutingly came and sat beside him.

Just like old times, darling, he said. Just like you and me alone in that hotel with those wine coolers…

Do you hate me?

Hate you? God, no. But I’m afraid of you sometimes. You’re a pretty tough lady.

I know, she said with a happy little smile.

Her lips were moving again. Maybe she was still totaling up her money, or maybe she was praying.

Someday I’m gonna do this thing to you guys, she purred. To all of you guys.

And we’ll all be down on our knees?

That’s right, Henry. And you’ll all be missing something. You’ll all be bleeding.

It’s nothing personal, is it?

No. Not exactly. Where’s my fucking burrito? I’m hungry.

Hey, it’s been five minutes and you still haven’t asked me if I’m a misogynist.

Do you think any of us were prepared for this? Do you think I was born to debase myself in front of men I don’t even know?

I don’t think it’s necessarily debasing.

How the fuck would you know?

How come the Queen doesn’t talk about being debased?

Don’t mention that name, said the girl automatically, snaking her face from side to side.

Well, let me ask you this, he said. If you’re debasing yourself, who’s making you do it?

It’s a job getting a job in this town, she shruggingly said.

Yeah, yeah.

I oughta cut you, she whispered.

You wouldn’t be the first, he chuckled. (As Irene used to say: He’s American, so he really likes to express his feelings. I’m not used to that.)

Look, Mr. Tyler or whatever your name is. Let’s get the ball rolling. I’m free and you’re free. Do you want a piece of ass? Frankly, I’d prefer to be making money instead of wasting time just chatting. I’ve got a little rock…

If I were to pay you, would you like me any better?

Naturally, baby. I might even love you.

For five whole minutes? he said with a wink. — There. You smiled. I actually got you to smile. You’re so pretty when you smile.

I am?

Why do you think you’re so sad? Speaking for myself, I—

Look, the blonde said. I’ve got my dates to take care of. I don’t need your shit. You and — and her, and Lily and Consuelo and Beatrice and Chocolate and Strawberry and Justin can all talk about me behind my back if you want. I don’t give a fuck.

Domino—

Look. You want to fuck me or not?

The Queen said—

Maj can pee up a rope.

Have you seen my Irene?

She started to rise, and he said: Domino, I’ll be your friend if you let me.

If you pay me, the whore said. That would work.

Honk four times, he said. Looks like your burrito’s ready.

Would you excuse me, please? said the false Irene. I don’t like anyone to see when I do this.

All night she kept him awake with her moaning in the bathroom. There’d be a long pause, then a deep, heartfelt animal noise that could have been either pain or sexual ecstasy; of course it was pain. Then from time to time came the emphatic sucking pop as she pulled the plunger out of the needle, trying to clear it. But she couldn’t. That shoe polish in the heroin — to hell with what it did to a girl’s veins; the important thing was that it gummed up her needle, and needles were not easy to come by… He heard her begin to weep.

Sacramento was chokingly hot that day — the Sierras were crawling with wildfires, said the radio, and coming down from the Pacific Coast Range into the Central Valley he had seen on the horizon a cloud of bluish-grey too pale to be smog; after Vacaville his throat began to get sore; that week, too, heat wave records shattered, or almost broke, or retained their majesty; record temperatures were exceeded every summer, it seemed, and yet it remained simply hot — a hundred and ten downtown today, the newspaper said, and a hundred and twelve five miles from there — vain precision! — but Sacramento most admirably continued with its business, its shopping, auto repair, driving, with its backyard weddings cool but not chilly beneath those evenings of rose bushes and midges as it got later and later, the businessmen yawning, waiting for the toast while their wives smiled vaguely and their children fidgeted, thinking about big slices of wedding cake, and strangers became friends at least until midnight, and sometimes longer; neighbors enjoyed seeing each other there because it meant that the world had not changed yet and therefore never would; neighbors would always be there; hence no one would die; and then it came time to cut the cake and throw rice, time then to go home, dreaming with raw throats, wake up hungover the next hot bright morning; Tyler had done this. His mother’s best friends, Mr. and Mrs. King down the street, were proud at last to announce the marriage of their daughter Lisa to a grim proud boy from out of town. Tyler liked the Kings very much. He would have attended the wedding, but he was afraid that if he stayed that long, the false Irene might disappear.

Per arrangement he went by Dan Smooth’s house to feed the cat and empty the litterbox. Dan Smooth was in Amsterdam in a hotel with young boys.

Yes, Sacramento was hot but San Francisco was cold and foggy that day with clouds crawling through the fog.

You don’t look well, his mother said weakly. Do you have any good news to tell me?

Well, Mom, I have a girlfriend.

You do? Oh, Henry, I’m so glad! Tell me all about her. Tell me where you met her. How long have you been seeing her? What’s her name?

He gazed at his mother with his eyes like welder’s goggled over his soul, dark and blank and almost opaque to protect him from what they might see, and he swallowed once and said: Irene.

See, for twenty they usually give you more. But there was only a couple guys out. Can’t trust all of ’em…

Okay, Irene, he said, sit down. You don’t look too steady on your feet. Where’d you cop?

Over by the Hotel Tony on Turk Street.

I thought you used the Mohawk.

It burned down, she said. Domino and I were even staying there at the time. We moved to the Royal Hotel. But now she… you know, with the Queen. So I… And the Royal Hotel, well, I can’t…

Oh, how’s that place? he asked, trying to be interested. She exhausted him.

Worse than the Mohawk, she said sourly.

That’s pretty bad.

Hey, I was wondering if you could lend me—

Irene?

What?

This morning I woke up feeling—

Here… she muttered to herself. The balloon… let me get that up…

Tyler sat down heavily.

Sagging, stinking, musing, sinking, swaying, trying so hard to put the needle back in her little purse but forgetting even as she’d begun the action what she was doing, she muttered: Earlier I bought one from this guy but it musta pooped out or something because I didn’t feel… Yeah, I’m just trying to put this stick away but I can’t find the little…

She kept leaning and swaying on the toilet seat. She tried to draw the plunger out but her fingers kept getting in each others’ way. Now the plunger was upraised like a masturbator’s face. Her body offered him a bitter smell, not sweet like a fat girl’s. Her spastic shoulders sent telegraph signals of need to someone other than him — maybe to the Queen, or maybe just to the ether. Her long hair hung down. Her belt buckle kept flapping and rattling because she’d first tried to shoot herself in the behind. She sat there on the toilet seat, and her scarred, stinking hand sought a fatty bloody friendly place within her private waterfall world of hair to insert the last millimeter of gladness; and she slumped and slumped. He stroked her neck and she kissed him and said: You’re so nice.

Her shirt had a stinking brown stain. — Oh, see, that’s where I muscle. But I didn’t have no tissue. So it bled from the needle. Lemme take a leak…

Slowly, slowly, with the needlehead she stirred what was in the bottlecap.

He went out and lay down. From the bathroom came the sound of moaning.

I try to be a nice person, she told him later. My Daddy always said I was his favorite daughter. After my mother died of cancer he got it in his prostate gland and he told nobody but me. I promised not to tell anybody, and I didn’t. So he died. Then my sister, aged thirty-four, got cancer of the stomach. She bled to death. That’s a hell of a way to die.

And now who do you have?

Nobody.

Not me? he asked, hating himself.

Oh, that’s different. You’ll always be my special customer — I mean my special friend…

No girlfriends?

Oh, it used to be different. Six years ago, we’d look out for each other. Now the world has changed.

What about the Queen?

She may be my Queen, but how much can she do? I’m still an addict, aren’t I? My shit still stinks, and money doesn’t grow on trees. I’m not sayin’ she… Queen’s so nice to me, actually. She feeds me an’… I’m tryin’ to remember if I ever… Oh, where’s the goddamned vein? Goddammit, goddammit, goddamn my goddamned body, oh, Henry, it hurts—it hurts! Ow! Oh, that’s better. And Domino ripped me off, but I forgive her, ’cause she had a need. You know what I’m saying? One night she was real sick, so I loaned her eighteen to get well. Now she ignores me. I saw her today, out making money in a polka-dot dress…

She had fallen asleep on the toilet seat now, with piss running down her thighs.

Oops, said Irene. See what I did? I messed up the point, so I’ll have to break it off. I won’t do it here.

Her head sagged until her hair touched the floor

Okay, where’s my top? she said, sitting on the toilet, stinking, scarred, and naked.

You got any tissue? she said. Lemme put this here for a few minutes.

You got any more money? she said.

You tryin’ to jack me up? she said.

No, he said, almost stifling in sadness and boredom.

You’re a detective, so that means you’re cop, she suddenly pronounced, sitting up wide-eyed and stinking on the toilet seat.

Glad you have it figured out, he said listlessly.

Well, ain’t I right?

Not really. Cops and everybody pretty much turn a blind eye to what we do. Anyhow, I—

Would you please please please be quiet for a minute? she said. I need to think. I think maybe I dropped a little chunk of rock somewhere in this bathroom, but maybe it wasn’t here…

He remembered being alone with the true Irene once when she had started yawning, getting distant: Yes, I’m tired, she admitted. — But when others came out, Irene, smiling and gracious, said to everyone: No, I’m not tired.

Just after dark on the first Friday night in July he sat in his car with the window rolled down and a pad on his knee, watching the neon lights squirming uneasily in and out of brightness along the borders of the sign for the Jade Galore Jewelry Co.; a bank sign glowed cold steadfast, and red ideograms gripped the windowpanes of the Tong Kee Restaurant like athletic crabs. Irene was out dating. Between the Tong Kee and the Dick Troi Hair Salon, a tall alley, full of sky, lured his attention by means of a succession of awnings. Between him and the alley, the flank of a car or van frequently occluded itself, or the heads of tourists, or Chinese mothers carrying their babies; but these flickers passed as quickly as they came, leaving the alley for Tyler. An Asian cop labored up the sidewalk, chewing gum, his pistol and baton dragging down his Sam Browne belt. The cop looked at his watch and entered the Tong Kee Restaurant. Small white lights shone uselessly in the alley. A Chinese woman passed quickly smiling, arms folded across her tiny breasts. The fishes swiggled their tails and flippers most languidly behind the window of the Tong Kee. A stooped old lady, clutching many plastic bags, stopped in front of the alley for a long time. Tyler sighed, doodled on his pad.

After an hour he went home. It was still early.

He picked up the phone, dialled, and said: This is Henry Tyler. I waited all night and Mr. Chong never came out.

That’s right, he said, narrowing his eyes. You heard what I said. I figure he’s clean. I figure we don’t need to bother him.

Well, that’s too bad, he said. I don’t want this case. I’m busy.

Fine, he said. I’ll send you an invoice.

Tyler, waiting for hospital visiting hours so that he could go see Irene, whose abscesses had finally won her admission, inspected his reflection on the plasticized marble wall behind the firehouse red beer tap of what used to be Blackie’s Club and was now the Wonderbar although the Blackie’s Club sign was still up above the back door. Oldies on the jukebox brought teary smiles to his alcoholic neighbor. The door of happiness opened on TV. Loreena the barmaid, hand on her hip, served the gesticulating or placidly nodding drinkers.

Well, what do you have to tell me? said Dan Smooth, easing his plump buttock onto the stool to Tyler’s right.

There’s a bull market for twelve-year-olds’ earwax is my news, said Tyler. What else can I tell you? Oh, I know. A stitch in time saves nine. How was Amsterdam?

Don’t talk to me about sewing, said Smooth, with his habitual angry leer. It reminds me of the little girls in pink tutus who—

OK, mum’s the word then, said Tyler carelessly. Buy you a shot?

In a moment, said Smooth. You see, I still have a special secret taste on my palate.

Tyler sipped his tequila silently.

And how are your business worries progressing? said Smooth.

Oh, they’re progressing, all right. I’m barely making my rent and car payments as it is.

You’ll be happier when you let it all go and become homeless, Smooth replied quickly. And, you know, I was just talking with the Queen about you, and she says that’s destined to happen.

After the other Canaanites get put to the sword?

Exactly. And I go to the lions. Not that I’m a Christian or anything… Shit. There goes the taste. What a pretty taste. It’s fading now; it’s gone… what a shame. Buy me a drink, Henry. The hell with your rent money.

Tyler raised a finger. — Loreena! Could I get a beer for this gentleman?

Sure, sweetie, said Loreena.

How’s everything for you, dear? said Smooth.

The same, said Loreena. I’m thinking of filing a restraining order. Excuse me. That guy down there got eighty-sixed last week. I need to go kick him out. Hey, Domino just told me a good one. What do you get when you cross a nymphomaniac with a kleptomaniac?

A rapist, said Tyler.

Oh, cut it out. A fuckin’ thief. Isn’t that rich? Ha, ha, ha!

The bar was getting more crowded now. Tired men, old men, hopeless men, and a pair of whores gradually entered through the swinging door, fluttering about as prettily as the international flags strung over Grant Street. Two drunks were arguing across the pool table.

Dan, said Tyler suddenly, do you think you could hook me up with the FBI? Get me a big job that would last a while?

Hee, hee, said Smooth wiggling his finger in the mouth of his beer bottle. God love you, Henry, are you asking for another favor?

Yeah, said Tyler.

You know I used my influence for you. With the Queen, Henry, with the Queen. You know that, or you don’t know?

I know, muttered Tyler, tapping his foot.

And have you profited by your introduction to her?

What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

Word on the street’s you’re giving up on that new Irene she got you. You said all you wanted was to have Irene back and she did that for you and you’re still not satisfied. You’re just a—

I’m going to the hospital to see her.

I rest my case. You’re keeping her in the hospital, not at your place, so what kind of goddamned caring is that, son?

It’s all true. And so I don’t know if I’m not trying hard enough — if I don’t have enough faith in the Queen to really love Irene and believe in her — or if I’m actually being faithful to the Irene who’s lying in the ground. And I–I don’t know what to do.

Well, at least you’re sincere, Smooth said. The Queen loves sincere people.

Yeah, Tyler said despondently.

And you believe in justice?

What do you mean?

You believe that if you were working for the FBI you’d be helping good people and punishing bad people?

I, uh—

Tell me a story about our great justice system, Henry.

Know how the police broke this one guy? said Tyler with a sneering chuckle. What they did was they hooked him up to a photocopy machine. And on the glass over the electric eye, underneath the cover, they put a piece of paper that said “FALSE.” So every time they’d ask the suspect a question, they’d hit the “START” button. And then a piece of paper that said “FALSE” would come out. So they’d show that to the suspect and say: See? You’re lying. And they broke that guy. He confessed.

All right. Fine. You’re on our side. You’re a Canaanite. And how much influence do you think I have with Louis Freeh?

Let me guess. You’re about to tell me you don’t have any.

Splendid! cried Smooth, loudly enough for one of the drinkers to turn his head frowningly.

Oh, forget it, said Tyler.

We can’t forget it now, no matter how much we both may want to, rejoined the odious man. You’re anxious, I take it, about your actual survival. You’re pissing blood these days. Am I correct, Henry?

Tyler shrugged his shoulders despairingly.

Don’t think I don’t want to help you. We’re blood brothers, after all. Tell me we’re blood brothers, Henry.

We’re blood brothers, said Tyler dully, remembering the autobiography of a serial killer which he’d thumbed through some months ago: the murderer, since electrocuted in Florida, had always made his victims parrot at knifepoint some puerile affirmation of sexual or emotional need before he raped and eviscerated them. What a world! I don’t want to be in this world any longer, he thought to himself.

Henry, I can see you’re desperate. All the fight’s gone out of you.

Tyler smiled bitterly.

All the same, Smooth continued, you’re a lucky whore-hound. The Queen likes you; I know she does…

What’s on your agenda for the Queen and me? said Tyler, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice.

Number one: You came to me, not I to you. Number two: You begged me and bribed me to set you up with the Queen. True or false?

I’ve got to go to the hospital, said Tyler.

To visit Irene, I know. Let me come along, Henry.

Are you a sadist? asked Tyler in slow quiet wonder.

Anyhow, it’s not your job you’re worried about, said Smooth, gazing smilingly into his eyes. If I truly believed you cared about that, I would never have picked you up. It’s your sister-in-law’s rotten, stinking twat…

Nothing about Irene was rotten or ever could be, said Tyler steadily.

That’s what I like about you. Caught in an obsession — a delusion, really — and a very harmful, antisocial one, and the man will not give up! Hey, Loreena! This man fucked his own sister-in-law to death and now he—

Tyler leaped off his stool and was already cocking his arm for the punch when Smooth kicked him in the stomach. Tyler doubled over retching.

I’m a black belt, you know, Smooth whispered, his breath tickling Tyler’s ear. You had to be humbled. Now here. I’m putting three hundred dollars in your pocket. Don’t thank me. It’s not from me; it’s from the Queen…

He knew by then that it would never work out with the false Irene, but he knew also that he didn’t even have to tell her, that unless he physically assaulted her she would never regard him with all the bright-eyed watchful head-turns of a sick pigeon on the sidewalk, still strong and fearful at the very beginning of its death-struggle, because except physically the false Irene could not really be hurt anymore, so all he had to do was not see her and maybe not even tell the Queen that it hadn’t worked out because the Queen had tried to be good to him — he continued in awe of her, fearing to reject her gifts. Last time he’d seen her she’d stood naked against a concrete wall, supporting her little breasts with her hands while the other girls started drawing snakes on the wall, and he didn’t know what to make of it — were they playing or was it a ceremony or what? Dan Smooth would undoubtedly have told him the answer, but listening to Smooth left him almost exhausted.

A siren went by. Irene wiggled a loose black tooth and finally pulled it out. Her breath reeked of decay.

(But he recollected the time he came by dead Irene’s early one morning and knocked at the door for a long time until Irene woke up. John was away on business. When Tyler embraced her, her body likewise gave off a sour smell which shocked him.)

This black guy, this dope dealer put a gun in my mouth, the false Irene explained. Said that was the only way he could come. I started cussing him out and I got out of there, but not before he whacked me in the teeth with his gun, and this tooth here was funny ever since. I think it died a long time time ago, maybe right after he did that.

Here’s a tissue, he said. Why don’t you pack it in the hole until it stops bleeding — yeah, that’s good.

You’re a nice guy, Henry, she said dully. I wish I could be nicer. I don’t know why I can’t, but I just can’t.

He stroked her hair.

I used to wish I was dead, she said brightly, but one day I woke up and realized I was already dead, you know, where it counts, so why not relax and not make a big stink?

I know another dead Irene who—

But dead people do stink no matter what they ever meant to do… And now it’s easier… Hey, can you gimme five dollars? Just five. I’m not greedy. I’m not well; I need some medicine, you know what kind…

Sure, he said. Here you go.

Where do you get your money from anyway?

From business.

Oh, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to butt in. I didn’t know you had anything to hide. I mean, the Queen told me you’re in love with a dead girl and I’m supposed to be her, so I just kind of figured you’d…

Tyler said nothing. A fly landed on Irene’s filthy neck and she wearily brushed it away.

Can I tell you my real name? she said. My real name’s Consuelo.

He felt gratefulness and pain. She wanted to share something with him after all; she was freeing him from her; now she could not be Irene anymore; he had to admit that Irene would never be his or even be with him, and alone he would live on and on.

My husband took the fall for my brother, Consuelo said. My brother’s no good. He got caught by that three strikes law. Suspicion of robbery, they said. It was only suspicion. He’s doing three months. An’ some whore named Chokecherry, kind of a frightening name, well, she and he… So I started… doing… this…

She was crying.

Oh, God, she sobbed. I started doing this, but I was doing this before, and I was lying to you to make you feel sorry for me but you don’t care and I don’t want you to care, I don’t even… I’m just a piece of shit. What do I have to lie to you for? You’ve always been decent to me; you don’t judge me, but I—

So when does your husband get out, Consuelo?

Oh, it doesn’t feel right when you call me by my name; I should never have told you…

Driving down Nineteeth toward the Golden Gate, he reached the gas station at Pacheco and turned right, coming home amidst the whitish houses whose dormer windows bulged blindly like the eyes of dead frogs. The neighbor’s blue flashing light was on. The trees were snipped and sculpted alike from lawn to lawn — Italian cypresses and then bonsai’d trees. He had been with the false Irene too long now. He could scarcely fathom this place. He honestly could not understand why God had put him here in this cool clean zone while the false Irene and the Queen and all that crew had to live in filth. Or was it their choice? Or was it heredity, destiny, class conflict, inevitability? He was angry with everyone, even with the Queen.

He awoke with the taste of the real Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

After a week of mendacious coolness the heat had returned. Tyler’s car was at the local shop, Sacramento labor being a relative bargain, so he walked down to J Street where across from the palm-tree’d square once called Freedom Park by the Wobblies, then Plaza Park by the corporations which had transformed Sacramento from a hot slow farming town into a desperately ugly conglomeration of malls and industrial parks, then Wino Park by those who had eyes, then Cesar Chavez Park by those who, like Tyler, deify the dead, he found the pawn shop of his recollections, where he inspected gold chains, then strolled past the cigar shop to the next pawn shop whose gold chains were supposedly new, and in this abode of discounted joy the woman drew herself up behind the counter and said: Well, what is it?

I’d like to spend about a hundred bucks on one of these, he said.

Links style or rope style?

Well, should she hang herself or just be locked up? he said. It’s up to you.

The woman pulled out the first gold chain that came to hand and said: This is probably a little more than a hundred dollars.

And how about that one?

It’s all by weight.

Well, ma’am, then would you mind weighing it for me and telling me how much it is?

The woman sighed heavily, slammed his choice down on the scale, and said: Eighty-three twenty-four.

I hope to see you again before then.

I beg your pardon?

It’s perfect.

The other one’s a hundred twelve.

Oh, I’m a cheapskate. I guess I’ll take the one that caught my eye.

Eighty-nine twenty.

Guess I’d better pay before the price goes up again.

That’s the tax, sir.

It certainly is.

What is your name? I need it for our receipt.

I prefer privacy, thanks, said Tyler.

Sir, you’ll have to give me a name.

Adolf Hitler, said Tyler.

The woman snatched up the gold chain and stalked off to the manager. The manager looked up from the telephone and shot Tyler a sly glance. Tyler gazed back at him serenely.

Returning, the woman wrote C A S H on the receipt.

Why, how did you know my name? said Tyler. I’m Johnny Cash’s third cousin once removed.

I’ll get you a box, said the woman.

She spread the gold chain out on the cotton and tried to stab it down with golden colored pins, which didn’t take. Tyler watched with friendly interest.

What are the pins made of? he inquired.

You can take it from me they’re not real gold, said the woman, giving up her attempt to skewer the chain. She would have been a poor lepidopterist.

Tyler slid his finger under the chain, enjoying the smoothness and cool weight of it, and then he thanked the woman, took the box, and went out.

He awoke with the taste of Irene’s cunt in his mouth.

And now it was Saturday evening near the Tenderloin, and the red lights chirred green and he rolled past the Opera House, accompanied by sparse lights. The greenish dome of City Hall reminded him of Dan Smooth’s head. Straight up through the timed lights on Gough Street was the way to salvation, toward the Bay and the Marin headlands, but he meant to go the other way, down to the grimy darkness where the Queen was. His heart exuded self-praise. Who was he tricking? He didn’t love her; he loved Irene. But he wanted to pay his respects. He wanted to be thanked. He wanted the Queen to know that he continually thought of her. For once, the eyes were not narrowed in his grey face. His confidence, his hope, needed only a couple of finishing touches. It never dawned on him that hanging about the Queen’s court might be as improper a thing for a man to do as joining Apache women at their card games. He’d sent word by way of the parking garage that he was coming, and Beatrice, who was wide, sunny and busy like Mission Street itself with all its palm trees and families, said that the tall man would be meeting him on Larkin and Golden Gate at nine-thirty sharp. He had the gold chain in his coat pocket. It was that which gave him his confidence. Like Celia, who at that very moment sat in an Afghan carpet shop on Polk Street purchasing a magnificent bundle of threads which she could not realistically afford, he believed that offerings of money, being more easily made, were more craftily practical than the other kind. It is written that when the Greeks made sacrifices to Zeus, they threw only entrails into the sacred fire, keeping the meat for themselves. Little wonder that Zeus did not always reciprocate with ready-wrapped treasures.

At the corner, a pert black girl with a hairdo like a giant paintbrush started stretching her arms and shoulders. — You call me, you come to me, she said.

I wish I could, said Tyler. But I have a date with the Queen.

The Queen! she cried in amazement. It won’t work. The conspiracy—

But just then the light changed. He waved and drove on, feeling very loyal. He hadn’t checked his answering machine all day.

The tall man was late. Tyler stood waiting in front of the Mitchell Brothers as if for the strip show, taking his time, until the man behind the window said: Do you want to go in or don’t you? and Tyler said: Well, give me a minute to make up my mind and he leaned there for another ten minutes until the man said: You can’t just stay here. You’ll have to go elsewhere to make your decision… and Tyler said: Now, you say that if I go in now it costs fifteen dollars but half an hour from now it’ll cost twenty-five? and the man said that’s right and Tyler leaned there for another ten minutes and then said: I’m trying to make up my mind whether I’d rather pay fifteen dollars or twenty-five dollars. Can I just wait here for half an hour? — It’s the same show, the man said. — Yes, said Tyler, but somehow I have the feeling that for twenty-five dollars I’ll get more.

So he wasted the man’s time until he saw Justin coming from the direction of the parking garage.

He raised his hat.

Hello, Henry, said the tall man.

Good evening, Justin, said Tyler. How are you and how’s the Queen?

Oh, shitty as always, said the tall man. More goddamned cops and vigs nosing around. Let’s get out of here.

You can’t just stay here, said the man behind the ticket window.

Okay, sir, said Tyler. We’ll be back for the hundred-dollar show.

The tall man led him down Leavenworth Street past a late-night soup restaurant through whose window Tyler glimpsed a slender Vietnamese girl with a rainbow ribbon in her hair; with a rag and window cleaner the girl was wiping each plexiglass-covered table to mirror-ness.

Hey, Justin.

What?

Where are you from, anyway?

I’m concrete. I’m a sidewalk. I come from all over.

When I’m with a woman I come all over, so that makes two of us.

You know what, Henry? You try to be funny, but you ain’t funny. You’re just a sad-assed honky sonofabitch.

Guess my ass would be pretty happy if you stuck your finger up it in the back seat of my faggoty car.

You’re too fuckin’ much. We turn left.

The voice in the first cell — a tremulous old male voice — was saying: When you want to touch her hair you put her hand on your head so she knows you’re not insulting her sacred place, and she smiles, oh, Jesus, that’s how you do it; and then when you eat her out she is, well, she is caressing your hair so, so softly.

Does he have an Oriental gal interrogating him? said the Queen. He’s talking about Oriental gals. He sounds like a nice guy.

Yeah, I think that one no problem, said a smiling Thai girl, sticking her head out from between the red curtains. He just like the girl too much! Very funny, very nice man! Him so good!

All right, let him out, said the Queen.

She kisses you of her own accord but with closed lips, the dreamy old voice went on.

Wait a minute, the Queen said. I don’t like the sound of that. You interrogate him some more.

Her wet, tight, thoroughly delicious cunt… the voice mumbled. I’m so sleepy, but… shaven up to the top, then a nice overhang of hair. Tell her I want to be her friend.

All right, called the Queen. Nothing wrong with any of that. He sounds a little confused, but his heart’s in the right place. Who reported him?

Smooth, said Justin.

Dan Smooth reported him? What’d he say?

Said he hurt a child.

Smooth doesn’t lie about stuff like that. Get to the bottom of it. Tell this guy he’s gotta come clean or I’m gonna cut his balls off and cook ’em and make him eat ’em.

Awright, Maj, the tall man said. Want me to kick him around?

Just talk to him. You can do that well.

That Henry Tyler’s waitin’ on you.

Oh, he is? I heard he left that girl I got him.

That’s right, Maj.

All rightie. I’ll see him.

Where is she, Henry?

I don’t know. I stopped seeing her after she told me her real name.

Ah. So you stuck it out that long. Well well well. C’mere.

He came to her.

Kneel down.

He knelt.

Touch me, Henry, said the Queen. Just touch my shoulder or touch my hand. It don’t matter. Oh, you’re my sweet little baby boy. That’s right. Now close your eyes. You’re going to see that Irene you love. Close ’em tight. Now tell me what you see. You can tell me. Don’t be ashamed.

The Queen was squeezing his hand.

He saw the true Irene as a slender girl of nine, silently carrying her baby brother up and down the stairs.

You’re right, he whispered. I saw her.

She was a little girl, wasn’t she?

Yes.

You know what that means?

What, am I like Dan Smooth?

No no no. Inside, you’re little, same as her. You wanna be her friend. You wanna play with her. But you can’t, ’cause she’s dead. Ain’t that right, Henry?

Yes, he said dully.

You need to cry? You can cry in front of me if you want. Don’t mind about me.

He squeezed her hand. He said: I’m not sure I can, uh….

All right. Now close your eyes again. Here goes.

He saw perfect fish-ribs and kale amist codfish and red sauteed onions. Irene was eating with chopsticks, somewhere in the wide streets and malls of Koreatown. It was a dish called cho-rim. Now she was smiling and saying something, but it was all silent. She couldn’t see him. Her old uncles, all dead like her, smiled wearily and picked their teeth.

She’s having fish for dinner, right? said the Queen with a knowing smile.

Uh huh, said Tyler, nodding his head with an effort.

That means she’s been saved. She’s in heaven now, Henry. You don’t have to worry about her. If you see a dead person that you love, and they’re eating fish, that means they’re eating the body of Jesus. They’re gonna be okay. But you know that Irene’s not your kind, Henry. She’s a Christian girl. When she died, she left you. She never could have been with you. You know that, Henry honey? You got to know that.

Tyler’s stubbly face twitched, and a long tear began to ease out of his left eye, slowly, slowly descending his cheek. He felt no relief.

Don’t think about her too much. If you do, she gonna ache.

I—

Baby, I’m gonna ask you a question, whispered the Queen. And you don’t have to answer, ’cause I already know the answer.

Tyler began to shake and shiver.

Did you have sex with Irene, Henry? It’s okay. You can answer.

Another tear came out of him, this one burning hot.

Henry? Sweetheart, you okay? Sweetheart, did you and Irene make love?

He wept.

Listen to me, Henry, said the Queen, taking his head between her hands. Not to answer me is to deny her. You remember how Peter denied Jesus? I don’t know him, he said. Did you know Irene? Did you have carnal knowledge of Irene?

Tyler groaned. He tried to speak, but could not.

He knelt down and threw his arms around her, burying his face in her waist. Then slowly he sank down to the concrete floor, and clasping her ankles, placed his forehead on the floor. He lifted her foot and placed it on his neck with the shoeheel pressing down. She remained still. She neither withdrew her foot from him nor did she lean her weight on it. Together they listened to the squeaking of stolen shopping carts, and Justin yelling: Shut up! Strawberry screamed again and again. Kitty was silent. He gripped the Queen’s foot encouragingly, and she pressed down on his neck ever so slightly. The two of them stayed like that for a very long time and then he said to her: I am yours.

What do you want to do? she said.

I want you to…

You can tell me, she said very gently.

I want you to be my…

He was clinging to her tightly and his body was trembling.

Look at me, the Queen said so gently.

He looked her in the face.

Are you serious? she said.

I was dreaming about your breath, he said. I wanted to drink it in.

When he gave her the gold chain, she began to cry.

I love you, darling, he’d said to Irene.

Love you, too! she always used to whisper, kissing him again and again. But by the end she only palely replied: Thank you for loving me.

There was nothing pale about the Queen.

He slid his hand around the Queen’s shoulders and she got up and moved away, as he thought, but a few moments later they had come face to face and his mouth was on her mouth and her lips opened. His tongue was in her mouth. She was sucking his lips. He kissed her until his vision went black. — Thank you, Africa, he said. There was a roaring around him. All he could think of was: Oh, God. Oh, God. Thank you, God.

He stumbled away and sat down, weak. He kept whispering: Oh, God, oh, God. His heart rushed. For this alone it was worth having lived.

A small black woman came into the Wonderbar and said to Loreena: Could I please have a few napkins?

Sure, honey, said Loreena, glancing warily over her shoulder — only to find Heavyset, her boss.

It’s not like we have a lot of napkins, Heavyset said coolly, resting his elbows on a mountain of them. Give her one.

I have a cold, the black woman explained in a shy whisper. I was fixin’ to blow my nose.

Oh, Jesus, said Heavyset in disgust. Give her a paper cup. Here, nigger. Now get out.

Thank you for the napkins, sweetheart, the Queen said to Loreena. Bless you.

She glided almost silently out through the swinging doors.

Well, did you hear that! shouted Heavyset. That stinking impudent little nigger bitch!

Oh, get a grip, said Loreena.

That’s right. I forgot. Your boyfriend’s a nigger. You actually take a black schlong inside your belly. You—

Go to hell, Heavyset.

Don’t you smart off to me. I could fire you just like that. You want me to fire you? I know you were homeless before. You want to eat out of garbage cans again?

Listening to you is just like being around garbage, Loreena told him. Go ahead. Fire me. How many other girls you think you can find who will put up with your shit?

You know what? I’m gonna charge you for those napkins, said Heavyset. Those napkins cost a nickel apiece. I’m taking ten cents out of your wages.

Oh, don’t bother. Here’s a quarter, greedhead. Now, are you gonna fire me or can I go back to waiting on my customers?

I’ll credit you fifteen cents, the owner said. But I don’t want that nigger bitch coming in here again to scrounge more handouts. How often do you let her in here?

Oh, she comes and goes. Now let me go back to work, okay? This is like the nightmare shift. This is the shift from hell.

Outside, the Queen was saying: All right, Sapphire, now here’s a couple nice new napkins to wipe your mouth. Hold still, girl. What did you have to go and vomit like that for? What didn’t agree with you?

Luh-luh-luh… said the retarded girl.

I love you, too. You’re my special one. You know that, don’t you? Now clean your mouth off. No. Not there. You missed your chin. That’s a good girl. That’s my good girl.

Beatrice, sitting in one of the red-vinyl-upholstered benches in the back of the bar (crooked-eyebrowed old Dan Smooth said that the only two alterations in the Wonderbar over the past thirty years were that new upholstery, scarcely a decade old, and a slight abatement in the general darkness), had seen it all. Without the Queen’s knowledge she told the tall man, who shot his arms out and roared into the bar where Domino was just saying hello-o-o-o-o-o to one of her regulars, a pleasant enough old drunk contentedly incapable of ejaculation, and the tall man said: Dom, I need to speak with you a moment, but Domino said: Can’t you see I’m doing my business? to which Justin replied: You smarting off to me, bitch? and Domino said: Go outside, Justin, and if you don’t hassle me I promise I’ll be out in five minutes, then turned her back on him and said to her john: How’s life, sugar? and the john said: Same as always, at which Domino raised an eyebrow, pretending to be interested, and said: I’ll bet it’s just wonderful! to which the john replied: I hate my wife. I hate her yelling. I just hate it. I hate the way she won’t leave me alone. If I do something to offend her, well, no apology is good enough. I ought to know. I’ve tried everything over the years. I apologize, you know; I promise I won’t do it again, I promise to change, I promise whatever the hell suits her, and even though she’s just gotten her way she won’t stop. I don’t know why. I can’t understand it. Can you understand it? I mean, she’s gotten her way. What else does she want? She starts to threaten me and then she insults me. So I, well, I apologize again and I promise again even though I don’t believe I’m in the wrong anymore, and maybe that’s my sin, that I can only apologize once or twice before I feel I’ve done my duty. I don’t know. All I know is that she won’t stop. So I beg her to stop. But she keeps on threatening me and kind of snarling through her teeth. So I implore her to stop. And she just steps it up. She just twists it in. Her voice gets louder and shriller and there’s no place to run. So finally I warn her that if she doesn’t stop I’m going to lose it. Well, that turns her into a real harpy, or maybe it incites her on toward her goal, so she keeps it up — Christ! — until we get there, and I start literally screaming with rage. And then I come here. I end up here about three nights a week. I hate it here, but it’s better than staying home. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I date you. That’s why I…

So you cheat on your wife and you want me to give you a gold star for it, said Domino. Well, mister, I pity your wife and I don’t give a fuck about you. Now I’ve got to go outside for a minute and see a man about a dog. When I come back, if you want a flatback or a blow, you just lay down your money in my hand. But no more of your hypocritical bullshit. Who the hell do you think you are? You’re just a kid in the candy store that can’t decide which kind of liquorice he wants to stuff his face with. Now sit there and shut up.

The trick’s jaw literally dropped as Domino marched out, swollen with happy righteousness.

All right, she said to Justin. So you interrupted me. You blew my chance to make twenty dollars. The way I see it, you owe me one big fat rock.

You’re too much, the tall man said.

Well, do I get a rock or not?

We’ll see. Listen. Heavyset just insulted Maj. He called her a nigger just because she needed two goddamned napkins to wipe Sapphire’s mouth—

And what did Maj say?

I wasn’t there.

We’ll get the sonofabitch, Justin, I promise. Someday when the time is ripe I’ll throw acid in his face, okay? ’Cause I love Maj as much as you, maybe more. But—

But what?

But right now let’s just do our business. Business comes first. I mean, it wasn’t you or me who got insulted; it was only Maj…

Where the fuck did Domino go? the john shouted. She just disappeared out of here without a sound like some vampire…

She does that, Loreena sighed.

Why the fuck does she do that?

She’s a good kid, Loreena said, shuffling men’s dollars like cards.

What the fuck you mean, a good kid? She’s fucked-up! And you’re one fucked-up bitch. Come here and pour me another fucking drink.

You want ice or no ice?

Come here, I said. Come closer.

This is as far as I come, Loreena said. See this bar here? This is three feet wide. And that’s the longest three feet there is. That three feet makes the Great Wall of China look like one of Domino’s skinny old hair ribbons, because on my shift there’s no body contact with me. Do you get that, mister? — Well, look whose sweet face is here! What’s goin’ on, baby?

Hello, sweetheart, said Tyler, sitting down on a barstool.

What’ll it be today? Shot of tequila and a lemon?

Yeah, said Tyler. Buy you one?

How nice of you, said Loreena. She went and mixed herself something clear like watery nail polish that cost Tyler three dollars.

What’s that?

That’s called a cocksucker, said Loreena complacently.

Why’s that?

Oh, I dunno, said Loreena, clearing her throat.

Domino had just floated back in, so she said: Well, I know. It’s because they pour the Irish cream on top, so when you gulp it down you get cream all over your lips. Get it?

Don’t be gross, said Loreena with surprising primness. Anyway, some people call it a pussywhip.

I’d think a pussywhip would have tomato juice in it, said Tyler.

Can we get off this subject?

’Magine that, said the Queen in soft wonder from the doorway. Some topics make our little Loreena squeamish.

Oh, hello, Maj, said Loreena cautiously. What’ll you have? Rum and Coke?

Mm hm, said the Queen. She came and stood beside Tyler.

What’s up? said Tyler.

My blood pressure. Hey, Henry, can you gimme a little allowance to help support my girls?

Well, said Tyler, maybe I could afford three dollars. Here’s a three-dollar bill.

He slipped her a five.

That’ll work, Maj! cried Domino happily. You got yourself a rich old bastard! Hey, how about buying me a shot?

Shot of what?

Shot of my usual.

You look pale, Domino, said Tyler.

Yeah? Well, you look like you just hatched out of a rat’s ass. Oh, I, uh… excuse me…

And she ran out the back door again. Before it swung completely shut they heard her retching.

Get her a shot, Loreena, said the Queen wearily.

She shouldn’t be drinking in her condition, the barmaid said.

What, you think she’d ever keep it? That girl just got pure poison instead of milk in her tits. That’s my little girl. That’s my secret weapon.

Well, as long as she’s not going to keep it I guess I’m not responsible. Three dollars even, Henry.

Tyler remembered seeing Irene run for the toilet to vomit. She too had suffered miserably from morning sickness. He and John sat there listening to her throwing up and weeping. The bathroom door was open. Finally John got up and went to comfort his wife. Tyler sat swishing ice cubes around in his gin and tonic, listening to water running. Then John came leading Irene by the hand. Stroking her belly, he smiled ironically at his brother and murmured: We’re pregnant.

Domino glided back into the Wonderbar, pale and sweaty. Tyler wanted to whisper into her ear: Are we pregnant? but just then the other door gaped, and in came the owner, coked up or cracked up or methed up, manic and red-eyed. Seeing the Queen, he started yelling: No more napkins for you! Now get out, nigger!

That’s a shame, said the Queen. I was just fixin’ to blow my nose again.

Loreena came rushing busily up to her and slipped a dozen napkins into the Queen’s hand. — Don’t take it personally, Maj, but you’d better go, she whispered. Heavyset gets really out of control when he’s like this…

Buy you a drink, Heavyset? the Queen said loudly.

The owner stopped short, licking his lips foolishly. — Well, I didn’t know you were a paying customer, he said. Have you bought something already?

I was fixin’ to buy you a drink, Heavyset, since you love me so much. Henry, would you kindly buy this gentleman a drink?

What’ll you have, Heavyset? said Tyler wearily.

Oh, is this lady a friend of yours? said Heavyset. I’ll take a beer. I never turn down beer. Loreena! Bring me a beer!

That’ll be three dollars, sweetheart, said Loreena impassively.

And you can give her an extra napkin, Loreena. On the house.

Well, thank you, Heavyset, said the Queen. Now why don’t you just run along and let me transact a little business with Henry…

Heavyset, said Loreena quickly, do you want me to change the channel to the football game?

Hey, Heavyset, leave the Queen alone! shouted Domino. Come on over here an’—an’—what you always… shit, I feel so fucked up…

What about me? said Domino’s john. I was here first.

What about you? Go sit over there by the pool table and chill out for ten minutes and then you can… oh, I feel so sick…

You need to lie down, said Heavyset triumphantly. Come on in the back room and—

Henry, said the Queen, when you have no money, why you always comin’ in here every night?

Looking for you.

Lordy lordy day, said the Queen.

I want to be with you.

Well, don’t you just want to be with everybody that’s got a pussy? Henry, you don’t know what you want.

I want to live with you. The girls live with you. Lily lives with you—

Lily was living with us, and one day she walked out and didn’t come back for two years. She don’t even remember where she was at. I been keepin’ her clothes for her in a box…

I figured she’s—

I’m scared about Lily, the Queen said. Lily makes me scared. I can see her going down and down…

And Beatrice, too, he said.

Thank you for sayin’ that. Yes, and Beatrice, too. Anyway, Lily she like to stay by herself at the Lola Hotel, Room Twenny-Six—

But you weren’t sad when Sunflower died…

It was her time. You thinkin’ Queenie don’t have no strength nor knowledge? You thinkin’ Sunflower wasn’t ready?

Lily reminds me of Sunflower. More than my pretend Irene…

But Lily’s still Lily. She still got some Lily things to do. Sunflower was finished. She went beyond all that. When she passed away, Henry, she was already pure sunny happiness. Do you believe what I’m tellin’ you?

I don’t know, said Tyler. That’s the honest truth.

How can I condemn you for that? You don’t put on airs. You know you don’t understand. It’s all right, child, ’cause I never yet laid my hand on your eyes to make you see.

Are you going to do that to me?

You want it?

I trust in you to do what’s right for me, he said in a low voice, so that the other alcoholics wouldn’t hear.

She took his hand. They sat together for a while in that bar which was darker and shabbier than the snotty cleanliness of the Cinnabar on Ellis and Jones, whose bar’s wood-grain spread itself under a million coats of plastic while Diana Ross and the Supremes on the jukebox sang It hurts so bad—the Wonderbar was the best.

When the Queen went to the ladies’ room, he tore off a scrap of his soggy napkin and wrote on it AFRICA I LOVE YOU. Then he clenched it tight in his hand.

Domino had left her little silver purse on a barstool when she went back with Heavyset, whom she actually valued in a way because although in her years of growing older she had learned enough to avoid any barmaid’s eye so that the barmaid could not immediately sell her another three-dollar beer, still, that strategy could preserve a girl’s finances only so far, and when she inhabited the Wonderbar waiting and waiting for some trick to wander in, her expenses rose faster than cracksmoke because she really could not afford to alienate Loreena; but as long as she permitted Heavyset to bear her away to his little “office” whenever the fancy struck him, then afterward she could sit for as long as she liked beneath the nice mural of the girl with nipples like Hershey’s kisses; and maybe even shoot a little pool or watch football or hockey on the screen, saving up money and thirst until she was ready to drink the kind of classy bottled beer that made her spit thick. Now it was time to pay. Loreena would look out for her, she thought, but then she suddenly viciously distrusted Loreena and would have gone back for her purse; however, Heavyset, misconstruing her reluctance to be something less trivial than that, whispered in her ear that he had some crystal meth in his office, at which any other ideas which the blonde might have had went rushing up through the ceiling. So there lay her purse. Toilet paper, condoms, keys, lipstick, spermicide, a pocket mirror, change and three self-defensive razorblades had long since forced apart the zipper’s broken lips, so that the purse presented to the world a defiantly overt character not unlike that of its owner. Tyler worried about Domino sometimes when he saw that purse because its silveriness and inviting openness seemed to him to offer an invitation to evildoers, but doubtless Domino knew best. Picking it up by one safety-pinned strap, he slid it across the bar to Loreena, who was working the register, and asked her to keep it safe for the tipsy girl. Loreena nodded wordlessly and stuffed it behind the beer keg where only she could reach it. Returning to his spot, Tyler encountered Domino’s john, who’d dug both hands into the Queen’s shoulder, trying to date her. The Queen was smiling.

Tyler drained his drink and put the balled-up napkin in the Queen’s hand. He said to her: Maybe this will come in handy. — Then he went out.

Just as he reached the swinging doors, he heard Domino’s john say sneeringly: So what the fuck did that turkey give you, a get out of jail free card?

What the doctor sees on the other end of the speculum is your cervix, explained the woman in the blue jumpsuit who now was washing Domino with Betadyne. — Do you want to see?

Sure, grinned Domino, and the woman tilted a mirror until Domino could see the brown stain around her vulva through a hole in the plastic. The woman in the blue jumpsuit sounded the depth of the os to determine how far along she was.

You’ll feel a little pinch now, the woman in the blue jumpsuit said.

The needle entered the hole in the plastic and quivered like a mosquito. It twinkled and hummed. The efficient woman in blue stood over her, hands spread; the needle slid in slowly, deeper and deeper. Domino was enjoying the woman’s attentions, perhaps because the woman was so tense-faced, determined, probably quick to take offense. The blonde had already sized her up back in the waiting room where all the very quiet women kept watching each other out of the corners of their eyes and the woman in blue, placidly brushing back her hair, explained: And this is a canula. You notice that it is plastic and it is flexible. — The patients watched the ring on her hand move, all of them sitting cozy together. It was Domino’s pleasure not to offend her, for now. Moreover, she liked the stinging of the needle, which she pretended was a part of the woman in blue’s body, that the woman in blue was entering her lovingly, sexually and above all subserviently.

Now, the tinaculum clamps into your cervix to keep it in place, the woman in blue said.

Domino smiled slowly.

And then we dilate you like this with the flexible plastic canula. There may be a little cramp when that tube goes through. Are you okay?

Domino smiled and licked her lips. — Not really, she said. I got raped by a bad man named Henry Tyler. That’s why I’m here today. He’s a misogynist. He treated me just like I was a piece of meat. Does it look like meat to you down there between my legs?

I’m so sorry, the woman in blue whispered, flushing.

Domino glowed with pleasure.

The doctor turned on the machine, which hummed like a refrigerator, and Domino began to feel intense pain as very dark red bars of fluid came out. The doctor turned the canula around and around. There was a slurping sound. Something was red through translucency against his white gloved fingers.

Is there a cramping? the woman in blue said.

Please hold my hand, Domino said, her legs spread like wings. She wanted to drink the woman’s buttock-juice.

You see, your uterus clamps down when the fetal tissue is removed, the woman in blue explained, digging the canula in, around and around. Fluid ran out of Domino’s cunt.

Now we’re going in one more time to check, the doctor said.

Please don’t let go of my hand, said Domino, staring at the tiny implements. She suddenly felt a sensation as strange as seeing black shoe-heels percussing across a glass ceiling; she couldn’t remember where she’d seen that but she knew she had.

After he puts the speculum in, he’s going to rinse out your vagina with Betadyne, the woman in blue said, very efficient and tall. Later Domino, craving more of the lovely and very tiny novocaine injections, would vaguely remember a cotton ball, and the drip of Betadyne through the plastic hole.

Now put your hand on your tummy over the uterus to calm the cramp, the woman in blue said.

Would you do it, please? whispered Domino through half-closed eyes. Oh, it feels so good when you do it.

I think you may be in a little bit of trouble, the woman in blue said. I’m going to refer you to one of our counselors. She’ll be able to help you.

I want you to do it, said Domino with a sleepy, wicked, toothy grin, and savored the woman in blue’s long slow flush.

Domino’s first abortion had been much easier than that, at least in the spurious fashion which lent itself to sugarcoating in her recollections, so that she could complain about subsequent procedures, saying, in one of her typically obscene mixed metaphors: These assholes just want to fuck women up! They’re butchers! It’s a government plot to sterilize us to save money. And they call this a free country. Don’t even get me started, Maj… — It had been before Christmas, which to Domino was already becoming as irrelevant as all the other holidays because the only presents she’d ever received were those she’d stolen for herself, seizing them from life’s jaws and running somewhere deep and dirty to hide, to gloat. And yet in those days (she was seventeen) Christmas retained the power to disappoint her; in other words, it was not entirely irrelevant yet. The Christmas present one of the boys had given her grew brutishly in her belly. If she didn’t do something fast, it would quicken inside her and then she’d be a murderess. Moreover, she preferred not to be pregnant when she was at home. Not that she wanted to be home, either, but a former friend of hers now on the streets had informed her in weary exasperation that her sister was in jail and her father was dying of liver cancer, so Domino, burdened, hence affronted to her usual point of martyrdom, made up her mind to go back for the last time to see those losers, and it had truly been the last time. She’d dyed her hair brown because she was not yet a fulltime prostitute and it was an experiment of hers to learn whether men would defile her with fewer up-and-down stares of fishy-eyed lust if she denied her blondeness, but the results convinced her once and for all that she was doomed to that, at least until she became a hag, so she’d let blondeness creep back into the roots of her brown hair as she sat in the hotel room trying to be unconscious of that qualmish feeling in her uterus. She was supposed to arrive in Vacaville in three days. Her father would have erected the plastic tree if he were well enough, but there’d be nothing beneath it. (What dully studied comparisons come to mind? Did this hollow celebration of Christ’s birthday thus emblematize His empty tomb? Would seven-year-old Domino, instead of squatting bitterly by the tree in her pajamas all night, gnawing angrily at her blonde pigtail, have done better to gaze up at the ceiling in search of presents? By the time she was ten, she’d already sucked a boy off on a dare, and when his manna spewed into her mouth, she vomited. But her control improved over the years. Just as a soda jerk leans, scraping and twisting the tall stainless steel cup upon the rod, so Domino would waggle her lips and tongue about a man’s organ if she had to, although she rarely denied herself the pleasure of stopping halfway through to engage in negotiations of a deliberately aggressive nature, until the man had lost his erection. After a man had passed his mid-thirties he could not as a rule get hard and soft and hard in quick succession more than three or four times. It gave Domino more than a little satisfaction to leave her customer unfulfilled, frustrated, and [American male socialization being what it was] humiliated rather than angry at his failure — although this was a delicate game; every now and then she got a black eye. — Well, this won’t work, she would tell her customer brightly. I don’t know what your problem is. Maybe you just don’t like girls. As for me, I don’t have all night. If you want to try again sometime, pull up under my window and honk four times.) Her father had sounded surprised and glad when she’d telephoned him collect from the booth on Eddy Street. His surprise reproached her, and his gladness infuriated her. He said he’d meet her at the Greyhound station. — Yeah, that’ll work, the girl said curtly, breaking the connection. She was very conscious of her uterus. It just felt as if it were there. For a month now she’d persisted in hoping that that unsought sensation would vanish, but every morning it grew more present until it stood for already not merely a mass of tissue inside her but an inimical being whose purpose it was to weaken and confuse her, then drag her down. — You’re dead! laughed the blonde, punching herself in the stomach. She asked her aunt to send money. It was about a hundred and eighty dollars. Her aunt reminded her that they had mutually agreed that the previous time would be the last time, but Domino wept most fluently on the telephone, pleading that she’d made another mistake, that this emergency was the worst ever. A year or two later, she would have known enough to lie, using the magic word rape, which opened so many tear-ducts and money-ducts when carefully invoked. She was in the fifth week. A girlfriend came with her — not a friend, merely a girlfriend, a dumb bitch who wasn’t in the life,* because Domino supposed it would be prudent to have someone drive her back. The girlfriend, whose name she could no longer remember, had borne two babies, one when she was fifteen and the next when she was sixteen. Each time she’d refused to open her eyes when the doctor raised up the child before her, raised up the bloody little rabbit. What was the point? They were both carried away for adoption. She said to Domino: Does he love you? to which the blonde replied, rolling a joint: That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. — Her girlfriend, broodingly sensitive, lowered her eyes. Neither of them had ever gone to an abortion clinic before. The girlfriend was pro-life, but she was a friend, except of course that she wasn’t a friend because even then Domino had no friends.

The place was of a pale green color, with nothing in the halls, and two examination tables. Really it was a processing plant, Domino thought, always firm in her conviction that all authority and expertise on this earth functioned either to withhold good things from her, or else to carefully crank her into the latest meat-grinder; and when she discovered that somebody had left the toilet unflushed, her gorge rose in outrage—this was the sort of place to which they’d compelled her! — but on the other hand, she would soon think nothing of the Queen’s stinking lairs where cockroaches crawled on her at night and the whores’ used tampons had stiffened into rigid dark plumes as of ancient flint knives, so may we agree once and for all that such complaints on her part were almost pleasantries, which is to say that they reflected her normal intercourse with the world?

Everyone did everything together; it was one of those communist places. Everyone undressed together. There were lockers. It would be vacuum aspiration. Everyone woke up in the recovery room. An ocean of white bodies was what she thought (her mind being more pictorially descriptive in those days). No one looked pregnant. Most were with their girlfriends or with their mothers. Her girlfriend asked: Are you sure you want to go through with this, Sylvia? — Look, said Domino. Can’t you see that this is already difficult enough? — All the white bodies looked very young — soft bodies, pale and plump and well cared for. It had not been very long now since Domino had confessed to herself that she was a lesbian, so she was still ashamed to gaze openly upon all those pregnant breasts and pregnant cunts; for she and they were as strangers compressed naked in some elevator; they spoke in low voices when they spoke at all, trying in equal proportion not to look invasively at one another and not to acknowledge the unavoidable invasiveness of those others. The real reason that she was none too forward in getting her eyeful, a fact she afterward jealously regretted, was that her own body, hard and scrawny, already wore its first tattoo, its first abscesses, and that long white highway of a motorcycle wound which Tyler’s finger would trace in that Tenderloin hotel room twenty years hence. It wouldn’t be much longer before Domino adopted Tyler’s mode of self-protective skullduggery in the face of humiliations real or imagined, namely, defiance, but this first abortion happened long ago, when the girl, still almost a child, remained meek in her shame.

She had to pay up front, cash. Then they took her jewelry away. She owned one Apache tear, an old piece of lapis. It was an earring. She’d lost the other one two months earlier when she’d had to run away from a married man’s house. While the other women compliantly twisted off their rings and unhooked their bracelets, Domino scowled and hid the Apache tear in her fist. She wanted something to hold. The general anesthetic wafted her down into darkness. She never heard the ringing clatter when the charm struck the green tiles beneath the table on which she lay. A nurse smiled and picked it up for her while Domino dreamed of nothing, like a thread woven into a heavy rug of darkness.

They gave her a sheet of instructions: Don’t have sex or use tampons. Do you understand? they said. — Whatever, said Domino.

A young woman enshrouded in white blankets walked by, and Domino thought: I’d like to eat her. I’d like to at least see her naked. I’d like to… and then the woman in white was gone.

One for our records and one for the insurance company, said the receptionist.

I don’t have a goddamned insurance company, snarled Domino.

Thank you very much, the receptionist said in a quick, low voice.

The woman in the chair behind Domino inhabited a loose striped dress. She had bare, crossed ankles, a glimpse of red hair. She shifted her legs, kicked off her shoes, hid behind the newspaper. Seeing the domed belly supporting her newspaper, Domino conceived a shocking jealousy of that baby still inside it; she wanted a baby, too. But the Queen had made her do this. And Justin had held out on her and jacked her up too many times; if she’d been able to keep that money she could have raised a baby. It was Justin’s fault. And all the men who used her, and the men who refused to use her, and the whole rotten world with its trolleycar bells and sherry-colored sunset clouds over white-and-silver San Francisco…

A motif in Domino’s life: the clinic. One window looked out in the outer office. After that, there were no windows. How many times will a street-whore go to the clinic in her lifetime? How many diseases, babies, false alarms, abrasions, uterine traumas, inflamations, infestations, ill odors until death?

In Vienna I once wandered inside a medical museum filled not only with such endearing oddities as the porcelain model uterus which of all things most resembled a bat, but also with ghastly things the sight of which destroyed my dispassion. I looked upon the swollen face and oozing blind eyes of a gonorrheal infant, the red sores and breast lesions of a syphilitic mother — real tissue scalpeled out of the dead, now displayed in a manner calculated to induce dread. The museum’s staff did not want me to catch syphilis. Hence they spread an atmosphere of loathsomeness and fear. To be sure, much in the place was of historical interest as well — not least the old prostheses like robot hands of black metal — but then I encountered pickled feet with what looked like bugs growing out of them — surely just some tissue deformity — and bits of tiny bones floating in the formalin, greenly meat-fuzzed. Then came pale grey ovals of other meat floating in other jars. And in one room there dwelled a black-burnt, teeth-clenched skeleton…

Let’s say that a woman becomes pregnant, and the doctor sends her home with “information.” She learns that if she is thirty-five years old, she has one chance in three hundred and eighty-four in giving birth to a child afflicted with Down’s syndrome. At thirty-six, it will be one chance in three hundred and seven. At forty, it will be one chance in a hundred and twelve. Research bears all this out. (We see the cross-section of a vagina, sliced and brown. Inside a spherical paperweight, we find lumps of gristle studded with sores.) The fetus grows into danger. In the medical museum in Vienna we see a tiny white thing, half baby, half shrimp, floating in a jar of death. Another fetus grows into another sort of death. Eighty or a hundred years from conception, it will all be over. Perhaps forty years from now the fetus will have become a middle-aged hooker in black, with high heels and a run in her stocking, a tired woman burdened by a heavy black leather purse.

Her fourth time, the degradation was the nurse pumping her for dollars. Domino had to hide the degradation. She had to hide how she felt. No painting offended the plain white walls. There were no magazines in the waiting room. On her first visit to the place, the nurse held her hand. The second time the nurse was more businesslike. That was when the requests for a tip began worming their way into Domino’s sweaty ears. All she had was a twenty she’d stolen from an old barfly… The doctor had a round face. He was balding, professional, courteous in an old-fashioned way. He called her Miss. Domino liked that. He had no name. Domino had no name. The nurse had no name. — There, that’s it, the doctor said. If you bleed more than two days, give me a call. Later she would remember coming out into blue sky and old buildings — gracious props of God — and she remembered massaging her belly which had already begun to ache. In the middle of that night, when she was fucking a man for money, she hemorrhaged. The man drove her to the emergency room. Later they told her that she had almost died.

Things happen, Chocolate said. I got friends, they been trying to conceive a child for years and can’t do it and others get one right away. There must be a reason. You know what I’m saying, Dom? A divine reason.

Oh, fuck that, said Domino.

She hadn’t told the others when she got the abortion. It was nobody’s business but hers. Later on, though, she’d started feeling sorry for the dead baby. She got so she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The dead baby came swimming through her heart’s windows at night, making her heart’s cat hiss, spreading its unformed flipper-arms wide like a torpedo’s fins to explode inside her with dead and bloody grief; she bit her lip and the tendons stuck out in her neck like tree-roots; the dead baby sucked the blood from her heart and then tumbled down to the empty place inside her where it had died.

I know how you feel, Chocolate said while within the crack pipe, smoke like white San Francisco fog roiled into her mouth, then into Domino’s mouth, which was framed by white scars from the broken glass which had penetrated her body in numberless accidents.

You ever had an abortion? the blonde suddenly said in a low anxious voice.

Uh huh, said Chocolate. ’Course I did. We all gotta have those.

I feel a little strange, Domino said. You know. In my tummy.

Oh, everybody start to feel that. Never mind about that, Dom.

I just kind of sat there empty afterward, Chocolate. Know what I mean? I felt so bad. And this was my ninth time.

Uh huh. Hey, Dom, let’s go score some rock. I know a trick who—

Chocolate?

What?

What’s your real name?

Why the fuck you want to know?

Because.

Brenda.

Brenda, huh? Well, I guess Chocolate will work. Brenda’s some stupid twat’s name.

What the fuck you ask me for if you gonna insult me?

Then I woke up with a pinching cramp this morning, Chocolate, and I felt kind of scared…

You’re gonna bleed for a couple of days, Dom. Don’t have a heart attack. For Jesus sake. Stupid twat name she tells me. Dom, you anybody else I cut your face.

I feel, you know, neutral.

About callin’ me a twat?

About what I did. To my…

Well, you got to. I always felt neutral about it.

Always?

I felt, well, weird but okay. Even that first time I never told the daddy, and back then when I just turn sixteen I actually got a pretty goddamned good idea who that daddy might be…

Brenda? said the blonde, longing just then to be as jaunty as miniskirted Chocolate with her headphones on and her wrinkled fist jammed firmly against her hip and her lips parted in a heroin smile with darkness deep inside as she raised knee and showed leg.

What?

Brenda, my tummy hurts.

You gonna be fine, Dom. You want me to get the Queen?

Shit, no. What’s the use of bothering her? She never—

I don’t wanna hear you badmouth her, Dom. But if you wanna smoke some weed, that gonna take your cramps away, I guarantee…

Brenda? repeated the blonde, her eyes as slow and bleary as a car’s yellow eyes creeping down a hooker avenue.

Call me Chocolate. Brenda just some stupid twat name.

Brenda, my—

Lemme guess. Your tummy hurts.

Oh, fuck off.

Well, you did it. Nobody did it to you. You said you didn’t want no baby, so…

You think I’m trash? You think I’m not good enough to have a baby? Is that what you think?

Hey, honey, lots of women like us got other goals. We’re professional women. We never got any appropriate time until we make a time and that’s not how life works.

So you’re saying I should have kept my baby. You’re saying I’m a fucking murderess.

I’m saying I love you, Domino. Domino, you’re my sweetheart.

And you probably think I’ll burn in hell, don’t you, you Bible-thumping tattooed negroid bitch? I bet when you’re alone with the Queen you tell her, Domino’s just dirt. Domino’s scum. Admit it to me. Admit that you look down on me.

Domino…

Tell me you hate me. Tell me I’m trash, because I killed my baby.

Domino, you remember what the Queen said? She said, when you put out a thought in the universe, you gonna get something back. Girl, you better start taking responsibility for your thoughts.

Fuck off.

All right, Domino, that’s enough. Other people got problems, too.

Why, you selfish little nigger twat, don’t try to hide that hatred in your eyes. Now I know how you feel about me. You watch your back, girl, or some night you might wind up shanked. Some night you might wind up with a big old butcher knife wedged deep up your gonorrhea-infected snatch…

The falling out between Domino and Chocolate actually went back almost a year, to the night when Domino for pure goodness had gotten Chocolate a date (in other words, Domino saw the john first, but the john liked Chocolate’s looks better), so Chocolate agreed to let her have a third of the heroin. After the date, Chocolate wanted to wash the sperm out of her mouth with a bottle of some Thunderbird because she and Domino were standing right across the street from the liquor store on South Van Ness where at this very time of night a certain clerk might give Chocolate free booze in exchange for a little pussy because she’d managed to make him believe that she had no money — a demonstrably useful fiction to maintain, so she asked Domino if she would buy for her with the john’s twenty. In other words, Chocolate’s logic had just entirely contradicted itself, but never mind. — Sure, that’ll work, said Domino, clip-clopping into the liquor store on her silver high heels. As she was paying for the wine, a brawny black woman named Ada, of whom Domino was scared because she sold ass for Domino’s former pimp, brushed past Chocolate and asked for two dollars because she was hungry. Domino had already given Ada two dollars for food earlier that day, the Queen and Justin not being in sight to protect her. She didn’t have any more money for Ada, since the change from the twenty belonged to Chocolate. It wasn’t her money, and she told Ada so, but with a weak and sinking voice entirely uncharacteristic of her, because she felt in her soul that she was already dreaming a nightmare so terrible that self-defense must prove useless. — What do you mean it’s not your money? the black girl shouted. ’Course it’s your money! Don’t you be scammin’ me, bitch! — Through the liquor store window Domino could see Chocolate running away; she hoped to get the tall man, who was out trying to score a perfect baggie of white girl, but Chocolate, who kept scratching at her red eyes, trying to peel the swollen orange eyelids back and scrape out the infection that grew inside, unfortunately for Domino found herself presented on the very next block with a very attractive sexual offer which she owed it to herself not to refuse, being pretty broke, and once she accepted she got not only money, but also a deep needleful of pure China white heroin which blissfully sidelined her until late the following morning, so Domino remained most friendlessly alone as Ada pursued Domino all night, breaking up her dates. Whenever a car slowed, Ada scared the driver away. Wherever Domino went, even all the way to the Tenderloin’s red-streaked night where sparks came tumbling underneath the door of a welding shop like Fourth-of-July cigarette ash, the black girl was punching her and spitting on her. She fucked up Domino’s eye. Domino didn’t want to strike back because Ada was eight months pregnant and Domino would do major jail time if she killed her baby. She lost one of her high heels as she fled down the street, with Ada loping behind cursing. When she found Chocolate at last, it was dawn and Chocolate was lying grinning and mumbling in a doorway. Domino had been so frightened as to entirely forget her easy graceful old ways of intimidation; therefore she actually begged Chocolate for two dollars so Ada would leave her alone.

That’s giving in, Chocolate mumbled. You can’t give in to extortion.

Whatever, Domino said. Well, it’s not you giving in; it’s me. This all happened because of you. I can’t find the Queen. Won’t you help me?

No, said Chocolate, opening her eyes. You know why? Because you kept that money, bitch. What the fuck did you do with my money?

Then Ada was upon her, shouting: Guilty, guilty! and Domino was so afraid that she fell on her hands and knees literally pissing in her panties, and she felt the first blow on the back of her head, a hard bloody blow that cracked her skull, and she felt the second blow, and she heard Chocolate’s snoring and she heard her own screaming and then, thank God, the tall man was there, and it was Ada who was screaming. Domino never saw Ada again. She never talked to the tall man about what had happened, and the Queen when she heard made everyone, I mean everyone, promise never to speak of that night when Domino had lost the management of herself and become a dirty submissive little child. (Soumis, you know, that means submissive, said Dan Smooth mildly, looking up at Tyler from his French dictionary. A fille soumise is a prostitute under police control.)

That night almost killed Domino. It did something to her soul. It sealed her in a protective prison of rage.

Later the Queen sent for Chocolate and said: Why didn’t you help her? Domino’s your sister.

Oh, Maj, Chocolate whined, I know I fucked up, but she stole that twenty dollars from me. She never—

You givin’ me static, you evil little bitch? said the Queen. You go to Domino right now an’ say you’re sorry.

Please, Maj. I’m afraid of Domino now…

Don’t think Queenie can’t understand you. Don’t think you’re out of trouble, either. Now, what exactly do you propose to do for Domino? She got hurt. She got scared. She could have died.

I know, Maj. I said I’m sorry.

Go an’ say it to her. She suffers. She’s got a lot to suffer. She’s not like Sunflower was. She does it to herself. But this time you did it to her, too. You got to bear your cross now, baby. You know what your cross is gonna be? Domino’s always gonna hate you.

No, I—

That’s right. She’ll hate you. An’ you got to love her back, even though one day she gonna try an’ get you. Because it’s your fault. Okay?

Maj, I—

Did you hear me?

Okay, the whore whispered.

Then go an’ tell her. Now.

Chocolate did. And, as always, the Queen was correct. Domino never forgave her. After all, she never forgave anyone. And relations between those two must have been much worse, were it not for the fact that Domino, whose hair was gradually becoming as grey as Tyler’s face, could not bear to think of that night when she had been so helpless and so afraid of another human being…

Like most aggressors, Chocolate took revenge on the one she’d wronged. Several of the other prostitutes having overheard portions of her conversation with Domino about the metaphysics of feticide, Chocolate afterward claimed to have received the blonde’s confession that one of her babies had not been aborted before birth, which was why Domino, inexorably desperate, had strangled it, thrown it on a pile of newspapers and set it on fire. Of course this was a malicious lie. At worst, if Domino had ever engaged in any such acts, it would have been because she had miscarried, and her baby wasn’t breathing anyway.

Crossing the yellow-lit shop-fronts of Van Ness to the Tenderloin where leopardskin-assed girls were bending and leaning into pink Chevvys, black Dodges, silver Hyundais, Tyler found that so many were wearing white that night! They wore white, and they wore lipsticked smiles. They chewed gum. They put to shame the unrentable tongues of icecream-licking girls in the bright window of Rory’s Twisted Scoop on Fillmore Street, where the most prevalent form of prostitution was called “marriage” or “the relationship,” and the trick pad might be any one of the ugly houses of Ocean Beach. (This comparison, of course, was never meant to denigrate John and Celia, who often drove up to Saint Helena to look at houses. Those two weren’t really “in the market” yet, not having declared themselves to be in the market for each other, but John felt that one could never go too far when researching real estate, especially because the research gave them both such pleasure. In the window of the broker’s office he learned about a $750,000 estate on Palmer Drive, a “magificent stone castle” for $1.3 million, a “panorama” for $425,000.) And so Chocolate said to the man in the pickup truck: Darlin’, I’m much more expensive than gold. — The man said: That reminds me of a song I heard somewhere. — Well, sing it to someone else! laughed Chocolate. You fat-assed cheapskate sonofabitch! — Cunt! yelled the man, speeding off. — That was a good one, Choc! Domino said a little gloomily, wondering if her nose-hairs were showing. She had just smoked some bad crack, cut probably with speed, and she knew that after the good feeling (which presently tingled from her toes to her teeth) had gone away, she’d feel nauseous and headachey for a good three days — unless of course she smoked more crack. Chocolate started dancing and shoutingly recited a rap poem she’d conceived whose subject was crack. Sapphire laughed and clapped her feeble little hands.

A black-and-white pulled up. The passenger-side cop slowly rolled down his window. The whores waited.

Well, well, said the cop. I smell a little illegal activity going on here.

He smiled and got out of the squad car.

Peddling that AIDS-infected ass of yours again, Domino? he said.

The little Queen strode forward and said: Listen, officer, these girls are my kids. They love me. If you gotta say something to me, please be nice, ’cause they be my kids. How they supposed to feel when you start bad mouthin’ me? How I be feelin’ when you take one of my kids down?

All right, all right, said the officer soothingly.

Just say what you need to say and be nice, said the Queen. Otherwise, if you’re not nice, I won’t be nice, and then my tongue would be my sword, and you’d have to take me away.

All right, Maj, the cop said. Just keep ’em in line. I’ve had complaints, especially about Domino.

Why, what’s she done? said the Queen, stroking the girl’s long blonde hair.

Ripped off a few people, gaffled ’em I guess you’d call it. Next time I’m taking her in.

He got back into the squad car and slammed the door. The Queen waved.

Never mind, Domino, she said.

Domino said nothing.

All rightie now, said the Queen. Me an’ Henry, we want a little time alone now. We’re gonna fade right now. Domino, you gonna be okay?

Where you be? said the tall man.

Wonderbar.

Why you want to give a silver nickel to that racist piece of shit Heavyset? You losin’ it, Maj.

Imagine that, said the Queen.

Inside the Wonderbar, sweaty Nikolai, who stared at every kissing couple because he himself hadn’t kissed anyone in years, was asking: Will you be open on Christmas?

We’re always open except when we’re closed, Loreena the barmaid replied wearily.

What time will you be open?

Look, Loreena said. You know we’re always open unless we aren’t. I just said so. And we always have variable hours, so why do you even ask me?

But, Loreena, you just make it so nice for all of us regulars that—

Oh, dry up, asshole.

Nikolai’s mouth opened and he turned red and then his mouth closed again.

Tut-tut, Loreena, said the Queen. How you expect to make good money talkin’ like that?

Oh, hello, Maj. Hi, Henry. This is the shift from hell. And I can’t ever imagine any tips coming from that gentleman, unless he tipped over from being drunk — hah!

She went to the other end of the counter and started washing glasses.

Henry, said the Queen, I’m worried about Domino.

Tyler nodded sadly. — She’s a bad one, he said. I’m worried about what she might do.

Oh, Henry, how can you say that? She just want to be bad.

Maybe that kind’s more dangerous.

But who she gonna be dangerous to? She just make me so sad. I want to hold that little girl in my arms, an’ I know she want to come to me, but she can’t come to me no more.

And you don’t know why?

Oh, I know. I know her like I know my own child. That girl fixin’ to betray me. She want to betray her own Queen! And she might do it. But I’d love her even if she cut me up. ’Cause she’s my little baby, the Queen concluded, gazing at Tyler almost challengingly.

If this were a book I wouldn’t even read the rest of it, Tyler said. Christ and Judas is what it is.

She want to give herself, but she don’t know how. She want to love, but how can she love?

Tyler stared into his glass, hardly listening.

It’s up to her, the Queen was saying.

Yeah, he said listlessly, unable to think of anyone except the Queen and himself.

And I’m worried about you, too, Henry, she said.

Africa, I want to prove myself to you, he said.

Her fingers curled tightly around his hand.

He cleared his throat and said: Africa, I’m begging you to let me give myself to you tomorrow. Completely, I mean. I want to sacrifice myself to you. I–I’ve been so unhappy but also so excited…

Hush, said the Queen.

Africa, last night again I didn’t sleep more than an hour or two. I don’t understand my own feelings. I’m afraid but I want so much to be yours and submit to you and make you love me.

I already love you, she said.

I know that, but…

But what?

I just feel desperate. I don’t know why. I can’t imagine what the future will be. But I’ll be your good boy or your pretty little bitch or whatever you want me to be. You can even hurt me if I can just drink your spit or your piss or rub your menstrual blood all over my face or something… I need to please you, Africa. Africa, I need to give you a long orgasm and make you proud of me. Please help me.

No such thing as another Irene, huh? said the Queen.

Her armpits had the dry earth smell of catacombs. Her flesh was dark and soft like smoked leather.

Don’t ever hurt me, the Queen said. Are you gonna hurt me?

The Queen, a little uncertain, stood, slowly raised her arms, but her elbows were still against her sides in some reflex of shyness or self-protectiveness. She leaned back against the sink. He kissed her cunt for the first time. Now her arms went back, long and dark and shiny against the sink’s steel lip. He danced around her and his shoulders swayed. Her little breasts were free now. He was gently slapping them with his left hand as she had told him to do. She stood upright, let go of the sink, and brought her scarred hands toward him with the same sweet uncertainty.

His face slowly sank between her legs, and she placed her hands upon the crown of his head in a benediction.

He heard a crackling sound between her legs.

Right now her face is so beautiful up close, said Smooth through the suddenly open door. Tell you what. Get up close to her.

Tyler froze.

Go on now, Danny boy, the Queen said. Don’t be disrespecting us or Queen’ll have to get mad. Queen’ll get little bit pissed off. Now beat it, Danny.

The doorway contracted.

Never mind, sighed the Queen, her knees drawn up, her swaying dark knees…

Her breasts began slowly rising, then bouncing.

All night there were squeakings of busy feet in the hall outside, feet which every now and then would pause outside his door; rising from her and going to the peephole he’d see three or four desperate faces waiting and hoping; but they didn’t dare to disturb the Queen; or maybe they were simply too honorable even in their need to do so.

Finally she took his hand and they went out together into the hallway where all the whores were waiting; they raised torches to their Queen’s new happiness, clanking shards of metal and glass; then the tall man smashed a cracked mirror on the concrete floor, while they all shouted.

The crazy whore congratulated him with a squeak, saying: And sometimes in our lives we’re gonna have our moments, our intimate time, like a ferris wheel up on top of the world.

As soon as his tongue had touched her clitoris, his mouth and throat began to throb with a burning salty reek, her slippery juices etching themselves upon his palate like lye, salty and fishy and rank almost like that very healthy seafood soup which Korean women drink during pregnancy; if he could have convinced himself that it was health instead of death he was drinking, he might have been happier. Later he would swish and swill and gargle mouthwash; he’d put spicy hot sauce on his catfish dinner; but once his tastebuds had cleansed themselves, her taste came back. It was even on his fingers now, although he’d never touched her cunt except with his tongue. When he sucked her, he breathed only through his mouth. His tongue quickly found itself swimming in that rank, salty stuff. Suddenly he realized that he was drinking other men’s semen.

Around three in the morning they were awakened by a woman’s sobs.

I heard a female voice in your room! Strawberry was shouting.

You did not, he heard the tall man reply.

Are you fucking around on me again, Justin? Strawberry screamed, horrible and raw. Are you? Are you?

There’s shit in your voice, said the tall man contemptuously. I don’t like your shit, so wipe your fucking verbal ass.

Hysterical sobs were silenced by the tall man’s terrifying roar, which made the wall vibrate.

Oh, leave ’em to it, grunted the Queen. They’re always goin’ on.

But you’ve gotta deny me to strangers, she whispered, her nipples round and flat right then like the scarab beetles of ancient Nubia.

All right, said Tyler.

I love you, too, baby. Okay, I got to go take care of my girls.

All the whores gossiped about Tyler’s visits, which titillated them and allowed them to express natural human malice about their benefactress, but which simultaneously undressed them down to queasiness, because no matter what they might insinuate, they disliked their Queen to be love-greedy, hence imperfect. And yet nobody said anything against Tyler, except perhaps Domino, whose views remained less than clear. He never asked anything of them, and he occasionally made them happy. After he departed, the Queen would sometimes sing strange songs in her cigarette-smoke voice, songs of happiness even though they sounded sad, and to see her other than as sadly, eternally giving frightened them. (Another thing I think is that he’s here and he’s coming to get her but I don’t mean me but something still has to be done, explained the crazy whore. Then she wondered: Is this the kind of thing the Queen does, or is it one of those other things that she’s resisted all along?) They did not know what would become of her and themselves. Of course they knew that nothing in life endures much longer than a piece of colored paper, and yet their own continuing ease of circumstances invited them to believe that this night-by-night life they lived beside her would continue, just as in Sacramento the cool days of spring go on and on as if the hot blast of summer will never come. They watched Tyler far more carefully than he knew, and found him consistent in his doings and impulses, which reassured them somewhat. Gradually they gave up worrying whether he might be an undercover cop. The real reason for his visits, infatuation, was both simpler and more plausible. They all had johns who idolized them and whom they used, despising those men’s love because it was not and could not be founded on any knowledge of them. It was as if the men’s own hearts bewitched them, tricking them into faith in a whore’s voice or hair or smell. How could the whores bank on that? What if somebody blonder or wetter or slenderer appeared beneath these worshipers’ pillows? Therefore the whores wisely discounted and then unwisely condemned the men who loved them thus. And so they ridiculed Tyler, while hoping that their Queen and they themselves might benefit from whatever he might have to give, and he surely had something; every man possessed some treasure, skill or key which could be made use of.

I love you so much it hurts me, Strawberry heard him say (and she promptly repeated this to all the others). Sometimes when I look at you or talk to you I get all choked up—

The Queen smiled at him.

He swallowed and said: Often at night I dream that I’m kissing you, you know, between your legs… You’re so gentle and kind and good, I…

Tilting her head, she slid her middle finger into her mouth and began sucking it, sliding it in and out between her lips.

A lot of the time I — well, I don’t even think about you sexually. I just wish I could help you and make you happy, because, uh, I—

C’mere, said the Queen. Sit down or kneel down, I don’t care which. Close your eyes.

And she took her glistening brown finger from her mouth and on his forehead traced in saliva the secret Mark of Cain, which is the symbol of infinity.

He could see night by night how her heart opened to him, like one of those tightly wadded crumples of paper which falls into water and slowly swells, loosens, blossoms into a paper rose — even though it’s all unreal and underwater…

All night he lay in the Queen’s arms, sometimes sleeping, dreaming good dreams or bad. The bad dreams did not frighten him. It seemed that for the first time in many years he was able to stare down his own monsters. There they were; maybe someday he could even kill them. He clutched the Queen more tightly, until she groaned in her sleep. Wondering how she would change him, feeling already changed, he rode the long night into dawn. Clothed in calmness, he resolved to seclude himself no longer in fantasies, but to be grateful for all he had, and act usefully and respectfully.

Sparkles of sweat like mica upon a naked back, the Queen’s back, swelled into silvery droplets fragrant with cocaine and sadness; he drank them. Sometimes he felt the two of them to be not fully human, reaching, screaming. Legs up in the air, almost stridulated like crickets’, heads dipping down to genitals and back again, carried Tyler along, sometimes irresistibly, sometimes merely mechanically, so that whenever he went out from the Queen, covered with her odor, and began to think again, he’d say to himself: Our legs were not me. My legs were not me. My tongue and hands and penis were not me. So where was I? — Then he understood that he had been not only literally but also spiritually inside his Queen. He’d been hers. He’d lost himself to her. He’d been nowhere and everywhere. Walking past a no-name sashimi restaurant on Geary Street, he peered in the window and saw Japanese childrens’ skinny faces getting even thinner when they sucked at drinking-straws. This proved not that ingestion created hollowness, but only that one had to hollow oneself out in order to ingest. Legs went up, his or hers he could no longer tell, because sensation crackled through all of them with electric velocity. Were the dark hands or the pale hands his? When he was inside her cunt, there was no cunt anymore, and no cock, the hole being filled, the protuberance hidden; as it said in the Bible, they were one flesh. Her cunt was his. Where did she end? Lost in the cave of enlightenment, he had to grabble his way without that ambiguously useful perceptual eye known as consciousness; later he couldn’t remember what had happened to him, what he and the Queen had done; an hour or a night, it felt the same. Her eyes became the smoky barlight and slow headlights as smooth on the wet streets as lubricated condoms. (No condom, no problem! laughed Dan Smooth.) Where does anything end? Beneath a street-whore’s come-on of easy love lies a manipulative need, beneath which again waits a real ache for love. One night he was wandering upper Jones Street around Clay or Washington, rainy and almost silent, with only the cables humming and a distant car soughing like wind, and he could not remember who he was. Then he said: I believe in my Queen. I love my Queen. — The next thing he could remember, he was in the Mission district, which shone so brightly on a Saturday noon beneath a pastel sky. Was the Queen wise? How could he doubt it? The Queen of Spades, the black queen, the death-queen, the scary card, the wisest card in the deck, always turned up in whatever hand he got dealt — she loved him; she was his angel — sentimental slush! A piss-soaked bra lay in front of the Thor Hotel. He did the proper thing. He picked it up and carried it next to his heart as an offering to the Queen. He had no nightmares about Irene anymore.

The Queen would not be happy about this, Smooth whispered gleefully.

The video showed rainbow milk.

So that’s the Queen doing it with Henry, huh? said Domino with a brutal laugh. Too fuckin’ much!

They sat giggling at the strange, lurid bodies, strange movements as of grasses bowing in the wind, the man bowing and praying between the woman’s buttocks, leaning forward, leaning back. The couple’s arms became bloody amoebic pseudopods, hands flying out from their bodies, then rushing inwards to clutch at flesh once more.

That’s how you get a different effect, Smooth explained. You can do all kinds of stuff by that…

Domino’s mouth opened. She was fascinated by the seething bloody flashes.

Puddles of blue milk oozed together. Blue animals struggled with one another. Crumpled aluminum foil was moving and oozing up and down, the woman’s legs limp and sweaty on the man’s shoulders.

Now for Domino at least the footage began to grow tiresome, and she yawned and scratched at the long motorcycle scar on her leg while on Smooth’s television set two pairs of legs folded and knelt, revealing buttocks, rainbow crystals, flashing blue lines, stains on microscope slides, ice-maps. Two shapes approached each other and pulled away, bowing and weaving like water-plants. Green milk and heartbeats, blue milk running down breasts, holes and fissures swimming like X-ray fishes, all these entities imbued the pair’s sexual act with preciousness, just as in the Tenderloin after dusk every passing car momentarily transforms the pavement into a mirror of gold.

We’re all animals, you know… Smooth was saying thickly.

What do you want me to do now, blow you?

Smooth made a face. — You’re too old for me, Domino. You’ve grown cunt-hairs. Just sit there and entertain yourself.

But you’re going to take care of me, right? You’re going to pay me something…?

Only if you’ll listen to me talk about glistening assholes.

Talk about yourself then, said Domino, bored.

What kind of asshole do you have, sweetykins?

Oh, the shitty kind I guess. Don’t ya remember?

I have a really good feeling about this now, said Smooth. And there he goes. See how happy he’s making her? I almost want to cry. Maybe we should never have done this, Domino, but I always wanted to watch him with Maj. I was their matchmaker, you know. I brought them together. I love Maj. I love Henry…

I love money. When will you pay me?

Closeup. Closeup. Weird that the shape of those little lips makes such a difference, Smooth said.

Are you a misogynist? said Domino, whose voice sometimes contained the cool jingle of cablecar bells.

A misogynist? Sure.

I thought so. And you attack little kids…

Naughty, naughty! chuckled Smooth. I do not attack them. They attack me. They…

He was remembering how when his next-door neighbor’s child was nine she still wanted to ride on his neck, so he lifted her up onto his shoulders and she clamped her hot thighs around him. Later he was carrying her through the grass with her pressed up against him front to front, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and his folded arms against his stomach to make a seat for her. He couldn’t resist. He opened his arms and slid one hand under each of her buttocks. Saying nothing, the child clung to him more tightly, so he slid his right hand up under that pretty pink dress and began to rub her vulva, whose lips he could feel much more distinctly than a grown woman’s, because there was no hair. The child began to writhe in his arms, gripping him more and more tightly. She uttered strange cries like those of the retarded girl Sapphire. Then she sighed happily and laid her burning head upon his shoulder. That had been the best moment of Dan Smooth’s life.

I keep quiet about what I do, usually, he said to the blonde. You understand me, I think. You know that I…

It’s very isolating, Domino agreed. You know, I was very sexual as a girl and couldn’t talk about it.

Now this one is not so obvious, said Smooth. Watch how she moves around. I don’t know how to describe how she moves. It’s like eating chocolate while admiring stained glass windows in some fabulous church, you know, some… Now watch this. Watch how she kind of hops around.

The video continued with one long white leg up, and a strange crow, a diver, an astronaut, a black pelican’s beak darting in and out between white cliffs.

In silence, Domino and Dan Smooth listened to the Queen’s husky moans: Ohh, oh, oh, ohhh, oaah, aoh, uh, oh, oh, uh, uh, I’m coming, I’m o-o-o-oh, uh, uh, uh, uh!

Wow, said Domino with her crooked little smile. I was never able to make her come like that. When she comes she comes.

Yeah, sighed Smooth.

And lookit him coming. There he goes. Hah! There he goes! Lookit his face. That stupid fuck. I always hated that guy. Now he’s smiling. He thinks he’s really something, since he’s had our Queen.

Ah, so you’re jealous. Me too. Watch his hips now. So much of this, it’s hard to know what is esentially male and what’s conditioned.

That stupid fuck! she shouted.

Domino, I want you to shut up now.

Domino’s eyesockets were like twin bites taken out of an apple core which had been forgotten on the grimy dresser of some whore hotel and so oxidized dark brown.

People think I always push them away, she said. It’s not that I like to push them away. But so many times they just become something untrue. They cheat me once, and then I can’t forgive. I never forgive.

And what’d she do to you? said Kitty, applying lipstick.

Oh, nothing. I’m becoming more and more alienated.

Where are you gonna try tonight?

Ellis is too hot. Maybe in front of the Wonderbar. Why, you wanna double date?

No, I got a regular I gotta meet. But seriously now, Dom, you gotta…

Don’t start bullshitting me.

Aw, why don’t you make up? How can you not be friends with the Queen?

I just don’t want to.

You trust me?

I trust you, Kittypie.

Then listen to me. I’m tellin’ you for your own fuckin’ good. Get along with the Queen.

I don’t love her anymore.

Ooh, that’s cold. You think she don’t know? Besides, what could you do to her? Get her raped and gaffled? Shit, Domino, she’s got the power.

Black Pam stuck her head in and said: Kitty, don’t talk to her, don’t talk to her; she be bad.

Now why is that? laughed Kitty.

She’ll rob you.

Ooh. How’ll she do that?

I don’t know, said Pam.

I was fixin’ to learn, said Kitty, and Domino laughed so hard she almost puked.

What — how to rob people? said stupid Pam.

That’s right, Domino cut in. Now get out of here, bitch, and don’t snitch or else I’ll cut your little nigger pussy out.

Pam squeaked, and ran away.

Don’t worry, said Kitty. I’ll be watchin’ her.

Stupid little fraidy-cat bitch, laughed Domino.

Remember what I said, whispered Kitty. Queen’s got the power.

By some bit of synchronicity I once met up with the fellow who had stolen three hundred and sixty dollars from me two weeks before. He was so charming that for an instant I couldn’t believe in his indisputable guilt. He’d had his film stolen since. — I’m so glad I met you, he said. You’ll help me! — This he said with the absent-mindedness of the truly ruthless.

Yes, very nice to see you again, I said politely. He shook himself, beginning to realize that I just might be cool toward his problems.

Domino’s ego was a similarly expensive jewel. Although she well understood the expedient consequences of her actions, she remained so precious to herself that no efforts of others on her behalf, voluntary, coaxed, or coerced, could ever strike her as excessive. In every crisis, Domino assumed that aid would arrive. Her attitude was complicated by an increasingly justified mistrust of the aid-givers. The man who robbed me could still believe that he needed but to exhibit his difficulties for me to solve them for him, no questions asked. But Domino was experientially speaking several million years old. She’d reached her millionth birthday when she was a fifteen-year-old runaway coughing, blowing her nose and leaning up against the wall of the San Bernardino bus station (her corn-yellow hair was richer back then). She shivered and her thighs trembled in the pink tights. What to do? A security guard with a T-shaped night stick came to move her on. But Domino had nowhere to go. She was stupid enough to plead. The man took her into the women’s toilet and made her blow him. That bought her an ass-pinch and an hour of peace. Then his shift ended, and her bus of salvation hadn’t come, and the next guard called the police. What was there to learn from this?

Domino believed as strongly as ever in her right to freedom, cash, drugs and happiness. But she had long since been forced to acknowledge the entirely mistaken attitude of the withholders and nay-sayers who swarmed about. What to do then? What indeed, but lie, trick, cajole, deceive, compel, intimidate…

She was a good person exactly as often as she could afford to be. What she thought of as standing up for herself might sometimes appear to others as bullying; for her it represented the exercise of a sacred moral principle. As for friendliness, she showed her goodwill whenever she could. By keeping track of all the favors she did, she not only honed their edges, so to speak, into glittering utility — for what favor, once forgotten, gets returned? — but also verified her own goodness. And when necessity struck, as it so often did, then she laid friendship aside, and proceeded by the most direct route to manage whatever needed to be managed. If someone took offense, that was unfortunate, but to Domino’s way of thinking, almost everyone was either a declared or an undeclared enemy anyhow. Domino thus was one of the most reasonable women in the world. Her moral calculus was honest, practical and consistent.

And now at last the time had come for Domino to appear in superior court, face to face (as she thought) with her pasty-faced ex-regular out of whose glove compartment the pistol had fallen and under whose passenger seat the cops had found that baggie of methamphetamine. — Gun up, Dom, said the Queen. I’ll be prayin’ over you. You want me to be in court? Or can I send Henry? — Oh, what the fuck’s the difference? said the blonde. If you even have to ask, that means you don’t want to be there for me… — C’mere, whispered the sad Queen, but Domino would not. — All rightie, then, Henry and I will both come. Beatrice can watch over Sapphire…

Just to make her feel good, the Queen said in Tyler’s ear, and he nodded. A Mr. Munif had requested his professional services for an infidelity case, but it would have conflicted with Domino’s court date, so he turned the job down.

The public defender had warned the blonde that her exposure was four years of potential jail time. He tried to explain how all the counts added up but she didn’t even bother to listen. Brisk and enterprising, she only wanted to know what she could do now. She could have pled guilty and gotten probation except that she had already violated probation and parole and everything else long since.

You haven’t been showing up, have you? the public defender said.

No, not everytime, Domino replied wearily.

That’s too bad, Ms. Fine. You know what MTR means?

No.

It means motion to revoke. They want to MTR your probation. It’s a real shame. You know, Ms. Fine, if you’re smokin’ crack and you test dirty, they don’t really give a shit as long as you show up for probation. Ms. Fine—

What?

Mind if I call you Sylvia?

I don’t give a fuck.

Look, Sylvia, parole is a totally different matter. With parole, you screw up, you go straight to the pen.

Cut to the chase, pal. I hate this.

I—

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!

You can do up to four violations of probation, so you can do four times as much prison time as in your original sentence, so—

Look, said Domino. Spare me all the motherfuckin’ math. Just tell me what I’m looking at.

Well, as I said, your exposure is four years, but we still might be able to suspend your sentence if we can get the guy who was with you in the car to cop a guilty plea to drug and weapons possession, so if you…

Domino stopped listening.

First, everyone who was anyone had to sit through one of those assembly line arraignments of women in bright orange jumpsuits on which was stencilled SAN FRANCISCO CO PRISONER. They sat with their backs to the spectators. Tyler scanned the backs of their heads, and found a brunette head, two blackhaired heads, a blonde, head and a greyish-blonde head on a long stately neck. The greyish-blonde might have been Domino. But Domino was beside him. Shall we be more specific? Because the first row of seats on each side of the courtroom had been blocked off with yellow tape which read POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS, the two well-wishers sat in the second row with the Queen in the corner holding Tyler’s hand, her head against the wall. Domino sat on his right, swallowing over and over, squeezing his hand.

You doing okay? Tyler whispered into her ear.

Don’t touch me, said the blonde.

If that door doesn’t close and lock, the bailiff was saying, just take ’em to a different office.

Then the voice of justice cried: Remain seated. Come to order. Department Twenty-Two is now in session.

In terror, Domino squeezed his hand.

On the stage of justice where all the dramatic actors played their parts, as conspicuous as the yellow teeth amidst a Haight Street tramps’ white stubble, the judge sat down, and a longhaired young lady, a whisperer, bent over flirting with a lawyer while a walkie-talkie crackled. Handcuff-rings swung in the small of a bailiff’s back.

Your honor, it strikes me that on count two there’s a procedural error, the public defender said.

Tyler barely listened. A moment later the public defender was saying: Your honor, I believe that there are waivers of appearance on all three defendants.

Three defendants! Tyler thought. But there were half a dozen women there. Then he realized that justice was not always slow anymore, that several mini-trials were in progress.

Ms. Kaye, the judge was saying, you ask that your conviction be set aside. But you haven’t been paying restitution.

I been paying in monthly installments, the black prisoner said.

Well, when you want a favor done by the court, you’d better pay what you owe. Motion denied without prejudice.

Yeah, gimme a call, someone’s lawyer was whispering.

The Queen kept shaking her head. Her lips moved silently.

Looks like you’ve got a diversionary felony, misdemeanor loitering, the judge was saying to the next defendant. Tyler held the Queen’s hand.

Finally it came Domino’s turn. The voice of justice said: On the sentencing calendar, line thirty-seven is Sylvia Fine.

Clearing her throat, the blonde rose and approached her punishment. Before, no one knew her from a spectator. Now she was the accused.

Can you see her? Tyler whispered, and the Queen nodded dully.

Ms. Fine, said the judge, you’re charged with one count of resisting arrest, one count of prostitution, one count of possessing an illegal weapon, and one count of possessing a controlled substance. However, there’s now been a conviction on the illegal weapon and on the drug charges, so those have been dropped. Do you have the money to appoint your own attorney?

No, said Domino angrily.

Sylvia Fine. Is that your real name?

Yes.

I see you have a pretty long list of priors. Two felony assault convictions among others. Ms. Fine, since you have two strikes against you, your next petty theft may be worth life in prison. Better knock it off.

Domino was silent.

Ms. Fine, how do you plead to all these charges?

Not guilty, your honor. I never resisted arrest.

We’re down to one count of prostitution and one count of resisting arrest. If you wish to plead guilty, the court will recommend the work project for thirty days. Otherwise, you’re looking at a year in jail. Do you wish to plead guilty?

Yes.

How do you plead, Ms. Fine?

Not guilty, said Domino with a twisted smile.

I thought you wanted to plead guilty.

Okay, whatever. Guilty.

I’ll go ahead and sentence you. Probation denied. You’re sentenced to the work project.

Thank you, said the girl listlessly.

My heart breaks for that child, the Queen said into Tyler’s ear.

Next case. Ms. Browne. Loitering with intent to commit prostitution, on top of the previous charges. They’re recommending a year for this and refiling as a felony. You want to plead guilty now to avoid refiling?

Yes, I would, the brunette head was saying.

Scandalous, how they coach them to implicate themselves! whispered the Queen indignantly. But Tyler’s head ached; he scarcely understood any of it. And as for Domino, to her the judge’s words were like steam from the sewers at Bush and Jones…

Thirty days later, the blonde came home. Nothing could make much of an impression anymore upon her soul’s hardstamped shell except perhaps the forces of petty and determined abrasion. On the thirty-first day, already bored and crack-hungry, she went out to Ellis Street to make money and in a lucky place where the waffle-pattern of windows was reflected in the hood of a shiny red car she was immediately solicited by a Dominican who raped her. The tall man had memorized the Dominican’s license plate number. When the blonde, half dead, told the Queen what had happened, the Queen went to the tall man, who went to Tyler, who ran a reverse trace on his computer, using ROYAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS, change from insecure login to secure login, the icons crawling on his bright green screen until he’d obtained a name and address for the Dominican, together with a physical description which matched Domino’s recollections. — No problem, Tyler said. Happy to help.

The Dominican had a daughter who was just now completing her first year of study at law school in Baltimore. He fully believed and expected that she would graduate at the top of her class. He expected such greatness of her that she had gone to Baltimore to get away from him. It was her image which he now saw in the mirror. Years later, long after his daughter had dropped out of law school to give birth to her illegitimate child, the Dominican told me this story. He was my taxi driver. He said that the spirit of his daughter in the mirror kept her hair pulled back by pink ribbon. She was smiling at him, telling him not to worry. But when he’d told his daughter about it that day on the telephone, she’d laughed incredulously. When the tall man and the other gangster saw him gazing open-mouthed into the mirror, they whirled around, but could see nothing. Then the tall man told the Dominican to stand up and take it. The Dominican rose, attempting to prepare himself. He told me that he was proud that he neither wept nor begged.

The other man went to the window. — Somebody on the sidewalk, he said.

All right, the tall man said to the Dominican. Down on your belly. Greasy Spic hands behind your head. Close your eyes. I said close your eyes.

The Dominican closed his eyes.

Now say a prayer to Jesus. Go ahead, man.

The Dominican stuttered, but could not speak.

Now count real slowly to twenty, said the tall man. Then stand up.

The Dominican, waiting for the bullet or the knife, counted as slowly as he dared. When he’d uttered the ominous number twenty, he was still alive. Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he rose to his knees. Nothing. Unable to bear it anymore, he stood up, looked behind him, and found the door open and the two killers gone.

After paying the other gangster, the Queen and the tall man gave everything else to Domino: the Dominican’s Rolex watch, his diamond wedding ring (the tall man had broken the man’s finger getting it off), his wallet with six hundred dollars in cash, thirteen hundred dollars cash which the Dominican had hidden in the freezer (the tall man had broken the Dominican’s nose in the process of learning where that was), and his station wagon with the keys. Domino might have made a couple hundred dollars more had she sold the car to a certain fence she knew, but it pleased her far better to drive it out to Hunters Point and smash the windshield, slash the tires, sledgehammer the engine, pour gasoline all over the upholstery and torch it.

Stupid bitch, sighed Justin, but she hugged him tight and stuck her tongue in his mouth.

I asked the Dominican whether the Queen’s retribution had altered him, and he said: Well, those two niggers, they were some evil characters. They taught me to fear God. After I got over my resentment, I realized that I had done wrong. My face was all split up, and my finger is still crooked, as you see. Perhaps my nose is also not the same as it was when I was born; what do you think? You know, I was living the wrong kind of life at that time. I was in the habit of thinking that women were meat. And then, to find out that this Queen of the Whores wasn’t just a legend, but she really existed and had the organization to track me down and punish me for what I had done, well, it made me realize that there are women with balls.

Skeptical of his conversion, I inquired whether he still went to prostitutes, and, if so, whether he ever raped them. His face grew ugly then, and he told me to mind my own business.

Strawberry, Domino and Beatrice stood in the doorway of the bar smoking. Later, considerably after their days and nights together had ended, Domino would always remember a gleam of light on a heap of garbage bags, and Strawberry leaning up against the wall of the Wonderbar with a long, long cigarette in her hand, her arm around one of the regulars’ necks as she tried to wheedle five dollars out of him. She remembered Strawberry as being continually with men, touching men, holding men’s hands as if she liked it — no wonder Justin smacked her around! Strawberry had the marijuana giggles. A police car drove by and Strawberry ran inside in a panic, discovering Tyler, who, flush-faced, was gripping a beer in both hands like a praying mantis, leaning on the bar as he gazed at the Queen with a foolish smile. The Queen laughed hah-haaw! — When Strawberry came out, Beatrice was gone on a date (having gigglingly whispered in the blonde’s ear: That’s a good idea to hide it in my shoe. You gave me a good idea!) and Domino was speaking with the Queen about a private thing as Strawberry should have comprehended but could not because she was still paranoid, so she kept asking about the police car, worrying that it might not be entirely gone in search of other victims, until Domino finally told her to shut up. Strawberry was hurt. She had wanted to tell Domino: Look! Maj’s got this skimpy little lace top on, like she’s planning to go to work tonight. You think she…? Instead, there was nothing to do but turn her back to Domino and the Queen. The Queen sighed. When Domino had completed her sad worrying and confessing, she went up to slip her arm around Strawberry’s neck, but was angrily thrown off, and just then one of the girl’s regulars, who had not been seen for a long time, rolled up almost silently in his black pickup truck, and Strawberry, screeching with excitement, flew across the sidewalk and into the opening passenger door of the already moving vehicle which carried her off.

Domino shook her head wryly.

That girl got a thin, thin skin, said the Queen.

Domino didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, holding the Queen around the waist, she said quietly: Look at that black night sky. It’s going to rain again. I think it’s going to rain all night.

You don’t want to go out, the Queen said.

I never did.

Nobody made you, honey. Queen’s not gonna tell you no lies. Girl, you’re free. You don’t have to do nothin.’

Some nights I have a bad feeling, Domino said.

What’s your fear, darlin’? C’mere. Come tell me.

Well, you remember, uh, that time I got raped?

The first time or the second time?

The first time. The second time wasn’t so bad. At least we punished that Spic and cashed in, thanks to you and Justin. At least he didn’t stick a gun up my ass…

So that’s your fear. Somebody’s gonna hurt you bad, maybe fuck you up and put you in the ground…

That’s right. And somehow I thought that once you came to us, Maj, then we’d all be saved. Don’t think I’m not grateful, but… Like everything would just work out on its own, and—

You can have all that if you want, said the Queen. You been there, Domino. You know what they call that place?

Crack heaven! laughed the blonde so sadly.

No. Don’t even joke about it. Jail. Jail’s the name of that place…

But it isn’t right. I’m tired of these shitty lousy streets. And all the men whose cocks I have to suck on…

Then don’t suck, the Queen said. Nobody can make you do what you don’t want to do. Even that man stuck his pistol up your ass, you could have said no. You could have died and not been tamed.

That’s bullshit.

Domino, I tell you this. Listen to me, Domino. Domino, you gonna outlive me. I know it. You got nothin’ to fear. Domino, someday you gonna be Queen after me. And I swear to you, nobody ever gonna rape you again. I know that. You believe?

I—

You believe me, honey, or you don’t believe?

I believe…

Good. Then go out there and make us all some fresh money. Or do you want me to get that other man who hurt you? You know I can find him. I found the Dominican, didn’t I? I mean, Henry and I found him. But I know you so well, honey. Just gonna make you angrier and angrier to see him. Well, maybe he’s dead. Hold my hand.

I—

Close your eyes and hold my hand. That’s a good girl. Now what do you see? You see his face?

It’s so dark, Maj…

All rightie, now. I got a glimpse of him. Kind of a glimpse, anyways. Man got those droopy eyes and the long moustache, I seen that man. Squeeze my hand.

I do not want to see that bastard.

You see, Domino? You tellin’ me now yourself you don’t wanna see that guy. How can I please you? How can I help you? Now, sweetie, you gotta put up or shut up. Squeeze my hand.

No—

Last time I’m gonna ask you. Squeeze my hand. Okay. Good. Somethin’s glowin’ just like that wool cap on top of Justin’s head. Now we’re past that. And here’s those seein’-eye demons. Now we’re in the darkness. His name is Ray. He’s doin’ time up in Pelican Bay. I can see him up there. Can you see him?

Domino pulled her hand away. — Oh, this is all bullshit! she shouted, and ran away crying.

As autumn came on, the police sweeps of Capp Street almost ceased, but in the Tenderloin everyone frenziedly told and retold rumors, of which the most extreme and exaggerated were forwarded to the Queen’s parking garage, of approaching calamities for which no remedy existed except patience. Of course this ill wind increased in force only gradually, like Beatrice, who sucked men off as slowly as her Papa used to fill his wheelbarrow with dirt and stones. On Irene’s birthday (August ninth) it was scarcely a fetid breeze. But by late September it could not be denied. It was up to the Queen to interpret the keening and take steps to protect her family. As for the queenless others, they lay low, mumbling evil prophecies from the innermost wrinkles of their gaunt souls. The great street organism braced itself, expecting some nervous shock. (Imagine, if you will, some suspicious streetwalker holding herself rigid in the headlights of oncoming cars, her hands twisted nervously behind her back as if they concealed frightening weapons.) Meanwhile there was a minor construction boom of new multinational hotels and upscale restaurants, the kind that John and Celia liked; these establishments chipped away at the Tenderloin, like roads, camps and waystations penetrating into virgin forest. The inevitable result, since street life, like any other kind, determinedly struggled to survive, was that as certain blocks were “cleansed” to resemble the wide, skylit stalls of the mul-titiered parking garage at Saveco, the remainder became more concentrated, thick and rank and wiry like underbrush now teeming with animals which have fled an oncoming forest fire. When the Queen was questioned about the meaning of this strange feeling which made the whores’ short hairs prickle on their necks, she replied only to wait and see. She continued to expand her operation, as if she could go on supplying protection to everybody forever, maybe because she believed it or maybe because it was too late for her to stop or maybe because she thought it the upright thing to do, like the moral calculus of a man who cannot swim but dives into deep water in hopes of saving a drowning child. And so, in this whimsical world of ours where pickled intestinal worms may resemble high-quality ginseng roots, the Chinese prostitute Yellow Bird, whom careerism required to drink the colored water which her customers believed to be alcohol, decided to leave the bar in North Beach where she had sipped away at her hopes for months now, because she’d heard of the Queen. — China was better under Chairman Mao, she told the tall man. In that time, no money-money-money. Not do bad thing for money so cruel to the customer. My madam she cursing and screaming if I drink too slow. — Indifferent to Mao’s merits, the tall man led her past a dusty window with a red grating whose bars and squares resembled I Ching ideograms, then up tall narrow grey stairs ascending toward a single immensely powerful light. That light became her Queen. Her heart became as quiet as Chinatown on a rainy midnight.

My name it mean like Yellow Bird, she was explaining to Beatrice over her glass of colored water, while the tall man stood just beyond the doorway swivelling his head from side to side. I wanna be free like other yellow birds but my life is no good.

A Chinese was yelling.

What’s he saying?

He say some bargain with bartender. He want make qvarrer. Every night I see him. Sometimes he go with two girls. — Very ugly, she added venomously.

Beatrice was sorry for her. She wanted to bring this new girl to the Queen.

Today I go to my friend’s place to get some money, Yellow Bird said. I keep some money in her place for my mother. Just in Chinatown I go vin-dow shopping.

A few days later Beatrice saw Yellow Bird on the street and Yellow Bird said: Because I qvarrer wiv the boss. I buy a new suit, and she say new suit not from me, but from customer. I say no, and she swear at me. Then I say I don’t want to work here anymore. Then she want to give me another chance, and she say she love me, but I say no. Bar is no good for me. Now I try to find another job.

Just remember one thing, the tall man said. Nobody gonna force you.

I know somebody who wants to meet you, said Beatrice in the same breath.

The Queen agreed to meet her. Yellow Bird bowed four times. — All rightie, sighed the Queen. Now I’m going to spit in your mouth. I want you to…

But she was noticeably distracted now by her friendship with Tyler. A few of the whores had begun to question her fitness to rule, but then, they always did and always would.

Right now I would say the Queen is my best friend, but they change, Lily explained. Strawberry used to be my best friend but that was before I met the Queen. Domino used to be my best friend. Shit, she started stealing my tricks and then she broke my arm.

And where did you meet her? asked the trick. (He was really a vig. Later he’d make a report.)

From this guy in the salmon-packing plant.

But when the vig asked Domino where she’d met Lily, the blonde curtly replied: We met in jail. Some cop caught me kicking a crack pipe in a doorway…

Is she your best friend?

Who the fuck do you think you’re asking?

Needless to say, Domino was the most outspoken, but even she never said publicly that she had become unfriends with the Queen. Outwardly she and the Queen continued to be on the same loving terms as before. And inwardly, too, perhaps, little had changed.

Dan Smooth, who always heard everything first, said that the city was going to tear down all the crack hotels on Mission Street — surely an exaggeration. Dan Smooth said that vigs would get the Queen someday. Dan Smooth, one of whose eyebrows was higher than the other, sweated gloom and doom like some Mexicali bar from whose dark edges women flowed, the ceiling omniously tinseled like a rattlesnake’s scales. Bad stories flowed now even from the lips of the Wonderbar regulars with their crutches and moustaches and their caps pulled low over their eyes. Surely it couldn’t have been true about the hotels, though; nothing was true that Saturday night on O’Farrell and Jones, that night comprised of black women in translucent pastel skins which were neither bikinis nor raincoats; they shimmered like jellyfish in a dark sea.

Well, so what’s your story? they said. You want some company or not?

Well, you’re just so beautiful, I don’t know which to choose.

Don’t worry, Strawberry said, not seeing the man’s ferocious sarcasm about to un-sheath itself and attack her, it’s our business, her and me. You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t pick me.

So you’re friends then, the man said.

Yeah, friends, the two women said in agreement.

If you don’t pick me, I’d rather have your money go to her than some stranger, Strawberry explained.

So can you buy me a pack of cigarettes? Domino said.

Sure, sweetheart. Here’s a dollar.

It’s more like three dollars. You’re living in the dark ages.

Grimacing, the man reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a five. — Can you give me change for that? he said.

You bet, said Domino, who considered herself a class act.

You ever done any time?

What kind of a question is that?

I was just wondering.

Wondering what?

What’s jail like? the trick asked brightly.

I just got out of jail. I don’t want to talk about it.

I only wondered…

Look, buster, said Domino. I’m not an animal in a zoo. You want a date or not?

You look expensive.

Well, you just go to your little ATM and take out a hundred dollars, Domino said. Your wife will never miss it.

My wife keeps me on an allowance, he said. He exuded playfully self-satisfied indiscipline, in just the same way as when barrel-shaped Brady went into a restaurant determined to be good and order the salad but when he opened his lips he heard emerge strict orders for pork chops and deep-fried calamari. — Can I get in touch with you again? he asked the two prostitutes.

I’m sorry but you can’t, said Strawberry.

Can I get in touch with the Queen? the trick said.

With who, dear?

With your Queen. You know. That little black lady…

No, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Strawberry said. You a cop?

I don’t know what the fuck this cocksucker is up to, said Domino, but he obviously mistakes us for somebody else.

The man said: Hey, if I just give you fifty in hard cash…

Honey, said Domino, that just ain’t gonna cut it. Now, either you walk or my homegirl and I are gonna walk. And my feet are tired. So won’t you please, please, please go away?

The man pulled out twenty and said: Then can I just get some head?

Now he’s acting weird, said Strawberry.

Head costs fifty from me, said Domino. I’m a self-respecting girl. I don’t go down on anybody for less than fifty dollars.

I told you I have fifty dollars, the man said happily. Let’s go.

Don’t go, said Strawberry. I got a bad feeling.

Why don’t you keep an eye on us and I’ll share with you later, said Domino.

How much?

I’ll give you a piece.

Oh, all right, sighed Strawberry.

The three of them set out, trisecting the Tenderloin night where everything was yellow against granite, and Strawberry dully realized that there were more and more Vietnamese establishments and more murals on the walls than there used to be. Glowing beads of sensation went round and round inside her skull like fireflies. Passing the 441 Club through whose open door the jukebox sang My, my, MY Delilah, Strawberry gazed in, remembering when it had been a black bar; now it was a Korean bar, shiny-surfaced, with red paper lamps which hung down like breasts. These changes vaguely upset Strawberry. She did not know what the world wanted of her. It was so much effort to learn how things were that she preferred no changes. The other girls kept saying that something bad would happen soon, and Strawberry felt anxious, waiting for portents. Down at Turk Street where the double rows of lights faded they went into the alley which the blonde preferred, and Strawberry kept her back turned to the orally copulating pair, trying simultaneously to block them from view. She heard Domino smacking her lips, and then the man grunted, and Domino coughed and spat.

She turned around. The man was zipping up his pants, leaning rapturously on the top of Domino’s head. Domino was retching.

How about a tip for me, mister? said Strawberry. I kept you from bein’ hassled…

I didn’t ask you to guard me, the man said. I bet you get off on listening. I know how you whores are.

Oh, really? said Domino brightly, rising to her feet. How do you know that?

The man sniggered and started to walk away.

I’m looking for your Queen, he said. And when I find her, I’m going to beat her ass.

Think he’s a vig? said Strawberry when he was out of sight.

I dunno, said Domino. Probably just an idiot.

Well, I think we should tell Maj.

Go ahead. See what I care, the blonde said wearily.

And you said you was gonna cut me in…

I’ll save you some rock, okay?

Please, Domino, I need to get well.

Oh, all right. Here’s ten dollars. But you have to pay the Queen’s cut out of that.

But Queen’s cut is ten dollars!

Oh, get lost, said Domino. Can’t you see I’m feeling blue? I’m so tired.

Are you ready, honey? the Queen whispered. Is it okay if I make you a little uncomfortable for a while?

Yes, said Tyler, swallowing.

Sitting astride him, she eyed him glowingly, a tender smile on her lips. His penis leaped up.

She bent and kissed his cheek. Then she straightened, wiggled smilingly on top of him like a little girl settling herself bareback on a trusted and docile family horse, and after that the smile slowly cooled upon her mouth until she was gazing at him in an appraisal which objectified and instrumentalized him for her purposes.

She slapped his cheek.

He blinked.

She slapped his face hard enough to make both his ears ring.

He swallowed.

Don’t resist me, she said in a hard voice, striking him across the face again and again.

His heart thrilled.

Turn over, she said.

He turned over, and she touched his buttock with something cool and thin and gentle, and then the cool thin gentle thing whizzed across the backs of his naked thighs, causing him instantaneous pain which then increased for almost five seconds before it began to fade.

The cane came down again and again. She was careful; she never gave him a stroke before the previous stroke ceased to hurt. She was making it easy on him this time.

She welted his thighs, buttocks and shoulders, then turned him over again and whipped him on the front sides of his thighs. He could see the long, straight, red and white welts rise up where she touched him.

She took his nipple between her teeth and slowly bit until the hot, cold, steely pain made him cry out for the first time.

Ahh, said the Queen, smiling.

Put your hands behind your head, she said. Don’t move. You’re not allowed to move at all.

She seated herself on his penis and took him, grunting, her face hardening and straining like a man’s. As commanded, he didn’t move a muscle. No one had ever possessed him like that before. Sweet sweat exploded from her and fell upon his chest. His wrists ached behind his head. He longed to begin thrusting inside her. He longed to crown her with something. He longed to place flowers in her hands, to give her pennies, dollars, diamonds, boulders of pure crack cocaine. Her mouth was wide open now and she was throttling him and spitting in his face. — Fuck me now, she growled thickly. That’s a good boy. Now you can come. Come for Mama. Oh. Oh. You’re Mama’s good little boy.

After he came, shouting and groaning while she pressed down on him with all her strength, she kissed him deeply and they lay together, glued by sweat, panting. She took his face in her hands and whispered: Are you okay?

He said: I want you to give me anguish.

Ohh, she said happily, embracing him. Oh, you’re the one.

You know I love you or you don’t know?

I know, he whispered.

He fell asleep in her arms and woke ashamed. Actually his dream had been this: Irene had sat on his face, grinding her pelvic bones hurtfully against his skull, then pissed long and loud into his opened mouth; he was suffocating; he swallowed her reeking, foaming stream; she shifted and squirmed and mashed herself down over his nose — he couldn’t breathe! He was dying! He struggled but she bore down harder; he had a tremendous erection; everything was going red.

Don’t feel down, baby, said the Queen. I know everything. Lot of men like that. And you never got a taste from her?

Once, he blurted out, but she didn’t know. I was… — and he remembered Irene and John’s laundry basket, and what in his desperation he had found there: the sour smell of life, the sour smell of death.

He’d dreamed the very same dream before, when Irene was alive, and he’d said to her only: I dreamed about you. That’s what I wanted to tell you.

Irene said nothing.

I know you don’t love me the way I love you… he muttered.

His face flushed. He didn’t remember the rest. But the Queen knew it all.

Lie still now, she said, clambering onto his face. He opened his mouth obediently. She gripped his head firmly between her thighs and began to make water in his mouth, more and more and more until he couldn’t swallow anymore; he was retching, and her urine was coming out his nostrils. It felt as though her piss had become his tears. Desperate and confused to the very bottom of his soul, he struggled among square tomblike openings far-spaced in the yellow walls of death, wanting to escape back into pure numb death but the Queen would not let him. It hurt so much! Tear-streams gushed like pale urine from his eyes. He was weeping for Irene and gagging on his own grief; grief was trickling out of his nose; but the grief was really the Queen’s painful water which she was giving him so that he wouldn’t feel so all alone. Her piss was in his lungs now and he was coughing and vomiting but she wouldn’t let go until her bladder had given its last drop. Then she lifted herself off him and sat on the soaking sheet, laying his head on her lap. His chest ached. She stroked his hair while he vomited. — That’s a good boy, she whispered. Queen’s good little boy. Never be ashamed, Henry. Irene’s crying for you, too. Never mind. Never mind. Now you’ve cried my tears, and it hurt you. Never mind, baby. Henry, you’re my baby. Can you breathe now? Try to breathe. You’re gonna feel better now, ’cause you cried so hard and it hurt you. You got punished, and now it’s all right, so never mind. Queen knows everything about you, Queen adores you, Queen’s good little boy…

And, exhausted as he was, he realized that his sadness had been eased. He’d come out from a tunnel into the wide, stinking, sunlit world.

Hurt me, the Queen whispered.

He hardly slept all night, and in the morning felt headachey and nauseous. He wanted to vomit up the Queen’s urine, but he also longed to retain it. A double cappuccino picked him up slightly, but almost made him puke, so he drove to Muddy Waters with its bad paintings and ordered a double espresso with the brownish-yellow foam in the little cup, and some exciting crazy music that he’d never heard before was playing, causing him to grin and laugh. He was happy. He drank coffee until suddenly his fatigue shattered like windowglass and he was in the world of excitement and joy.

I will pay you back today, the snowy-bearded panhandler said. I live right here in the neighborhood.

Don’t worry about it, said Tyler.

I will pay you back when I see you again.

Okay. And if you don’t, why, don’t worry about it.

Tyler wanted to give away everything he had. He was so proud, because his Queen loved him. He felt as if he had been cured of an incurable wound. For Canaanites, such moments are the most treacherous.

So many girls in the rain like black rubber butterflies! It was Friday night in the Tenderloin, and Justin leaned up against a grating, glaring. — Gun up! said the Queen. Keep yourselves sharp, now. — Long black and blonde hair waterfalls illuminated the hearts of heat-seeking men; ivory legs glistened in the rain. (It’s those legs that just jump out! Brady always used to say. — Wet, bare legs. But Domino, sideways against the wall, bent herself into a backward letter C, her breasts and belly jutting out.) There was Beatrice, leaning up against her private piece of streetwall with one knee up and the sole of her foot planted firmly against that wall as if she were a competition swimmer getting ready for the referee’s signal to push herself into the water of her life, racing to be the first to reach that same sad finish line which Sunflower and Irene had already crossed. Heat-seekers auto-crawled down from the heights of Jones Street, looking out across a plain of lights toward the horizon and then descending with the regularity of cable cars, lizard-silver in their swift inclinations. Heat-seekers emerged from the financial district, their wallets full of cash. Heat-seekers came from Chinatown. They sought wordlessly or garrulously, but they all sought without knowing why, each of them an animal, a body like some monstrous imbecile-prostitute at Feminine Circus, some speechless being deep red and swollen like a pregnant sow.

Take Sapphire to the little girls’ room, would you, Bea? said the Queen. Sapphire’s got to pee.

Let’s go, angel; doan be scared, said Beatrice, taking the retarded girl’s hand. Sapphire went with her trustingly to the alley.

A Ford Escort pulled up for Chocolate. The man inside said: How do you stay so beautiful?

I just keep prayin’ it up, the black woman chuckled, leaping in.

All right, muttered the tall man. I got that sonofabitch’s license plate number in my head.

A black-in-white rolled by, and the Queen waved at the open passenger window and said: How you all doin’, officers?

Shaking their heads in disgust, the cops rolled on.

Justin, go on by the parking garage and get our messages, please, said the Queen.

Just lemme…

Do as you’re told, Justin.

Swearing, the tall man strode off. He came back and said: Vigs. That’s all they talk about now. Rumors of vigs and more vigs.

All rightie. We got enough trouble night by night. Thank you, Justin.

Maj, I got a bad feeling about these vigs.

Okay. We’ll talk about it later. In private.

You gonna let me go now?

Where to? This here’s the busy time.

Gonna make a run. Gonna score a big rock of white girl.

Who wants white girl? laughed the Queen, and all the prostitutes eagerly raised their hands, like schoolchildren who knew the answer to the most important question of all.

I’m sick of that shitty yellow rock you’ve been bringing back, Domino said. We can hardly get high off that stuff.

Know what we call that kinda crack? laughed the tall man. Call it Oriental girl.

Are you prejudiced? What the fuck do I have to be around prejudiced people for?

Chill out, Dom, said the Queen.

Don’t you tell me to chill out! I don’t like it when you pay forty dollars for a twenty dollar feeling. I never would have copped from that connection again.

Oh, lordy, said the Queen.

Chocolate returned from her trip around the block. She gave the Queen five for the general fund, and the tall man ten for crystal meth. Now she was whispering into the Queen’s ear, relating how a free agent named Feather had passed on a complaint about the management of the Mehta Hotel on Mission Street, whose managers insulted both the hookers and the tricks they brought. — Shit, that’s fucked up, Chocolate commiserated. Somebody I know is gonna hear about that. Why the fuck they gotta do that? Specially when it’s us girls that be bringin’ ’em in their money. ’Less that’s how they get down, she chuckled. — All rightie, sighed the Queen. I’ll look into it.

Another black-and-white came. The Queen waved; the cops waved back. When Beatrice waved, too, the tall man snarled: Don’t suck up to the bulls. — Beatrice, scared and silent, ran to embrace the Queen. — Mama, I were be very happy, she said. — There was an air of sweetness and patience in her face, with its red-brassy cheeks.

All rightie now. That’s my good little girl.

Maybe on November the twenty-sixth, I’m gonna make a party, said Beatrice. I’m gonna be nineteen. Maybe I can ask my Mama for this.

’Course you can have a party, child, said the Queen.

Fuck, you look thirty, said Domino.

The same black-and-white came circling back, and this time the cops didn’t wave. Strawberry, high on crank, informed the world: Two five-o’s come an’ slam me down on the street and I do jail time for trying to knife them — oh, my lymph nodes!

Shut your face, the tall man said.

Heads up now, everybody, said the Queen. How you all doin’, officers?

Just fine, Maj. You’re going to have to break up the party. These girls are blocking traffic. If we see you here in ten minutes we’re going to have to write you up.

Lordy lordy, sighed the Queen. Okay, officers. Justin, can you help Sapphire? Beatrice, I want you to run down to that place, you know that place I was tellin’ you about…

Sapphire turned her head quickly and shyly, smiling with her pale face, and even while she smiled her tongue was hanging out.

Pull in here, pull in here, pull in here, said Domino impatiently; and the dark car crept into the sunset fog.

Are you going to tip me? she added.

Here’s five more, said the trick. You were really good. You’re always so good.

You just need a little petticoat government, that’s all, the blonde explained. And did you buy me anything?

Didn’t have enough… the trick whispered.

See you, the blonde laughed, jumping out of that long black car. A condom fell out of her purse.

Wait! called the poor desperate trick.

She ran across the street to the tall man, shouting: Justin, Justin! That sonofabitch keeps asking about you. Get his license plate number. Get his—

But the car was already speeding away.

Last week, Thursday or Friday, they hurt that girl up there, Beatrice was saying. They hurt her, and she was bleeding and everything. Why the police doan do anything about the ones taking money away from people that works? They just want us to be stealing and for us to do nothing.

Vigs, said the tall man bitterly.

Who were they, honey? said the Queen. Come an’ whisper in my ear.

They talk about some Mr. Brady, I think I see him before, the fat man with big money, one time I give him a nice blow job…

Brady’s Boys, huh? said the tall man. I heard about them in Chicago. Fuckin’ vigs.

The tall man, like the security guard at the War Memorial Opera House, who always locked his hand upon his head, leaned the resultingly reinforced elbow against a pillar, thrust his belly out and waited for time to go by, believed less in anticipating events than in seizing them when they began to appear like crow-dark ghosts and specters. From the window of darkened hotel rooms he watched light ooze down the immense brick and stone hips of the Tenderloin like a woman’s skirt slowly falling down around her fleabitten ankles. In the mouths of the Queen’s many tunnels he awaited doom. — I can’t get a fix on it yet, he muttered. Just how those godamned citizens tryin’ to fuck us up… Sometimes he squatted against the wall of the 101 Restaurant, watching. Abruptly, as if he could see his enemies, he rose and walked off, pulling the whore Strawberry by the hand.

The next morning he was walking up Eighteenth and at South Van Ness saw a cop arresting a Latino boy who pleaded: Yes, I know, but I’m sorry; you gotta trust me! and he walked on feeling terrible for the boy.

They’re all vigs, he said later. Vigs and citizens and everybody but us, all of ’em, all just one set, vigs and pigs…

Lily, peering at everyone in a half-blind fashion like an old welder, said brightly: That corner, right there, was where they found the two girls. And I saw them, too. You know, with their hands and their heads and their mouth kind of screaming. So you saw how they died.

It’s only a dream, said Smooth. Like eating pure chocolate. Nobody really dies. But nobody ever gets to eat pure chocolate. It’s always cut with strychnine. But the dream, now—

Stop eating goofballs, said Strawberry. You’re a goof.

It’s like they never ate peanut butter, Smooth explained. And I’m passing out peanut butter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, said Strawberry.

What is real? Smooth asked her. What is true happiness?

The whore didn’t answer.

I said, do you know what real happiness is?

I thought we were talking about those dead girls, said Strawberry. Now, Mr. Smooth, I don’t mean to disrespect you, and the Queen says you’re okay, but I hope that dead girls don’t have anything to do with your happiness.

Can dead girls give head? said Smooth. Are they young enough? Are their little lips fresh enough?

God, mister, you are twisted.

Dan Smooth of course had the run of the new Sacramento coroner’s facility with its one hundred and eighty single or double tables and its special gurneys for decomposed patients, so he had seen a few things. He admired and complimented the ultraviolet lights which were used to decontaminate the room between autopsies by breaking down corpse-DNA into meaningless atoms of putrescence.

In his opinion the double homicide referred to by Lily was of the same bemusing order as the coroner’s policy on freezing bodies, which is why Lily herself thought him to be freezing cold. But Smooth said: Do you believe in the resurrection of Lazarus? And, if so, do you believe that Lazarus truly wasn’t better off dead? Do you believe that Sunflower’s in Heaven now? Do you believe it’s right what she did?

Hey, said Strawberry. I knew those girls. Those girls didn’t wanna die.

Only a few people ever saw the Queen and knew her when they saw her, and in those anxious days when the vigs began to arrive in force like gnawing vermin blind-set on uprooting every hotel in the Mission, every brickwork old massage parlor in the Tenderloin, they glimpsed her even more rarely, which is why some gaunt harsh old street men began rumoring that she was already gone; meanwhile she continued to do what she always did, hovering like a light above the waters so that no soul which rented out its flesh had to be alone any longer. Like the improverished old people in Sacramento who lurked air conditionless in their homes with the blinds pulled down against the glowing sun, she hid from vigilante-radiance, fulfilling her purpose on the dark landings of hotel stairs, wearing castoff clothes which sometimes crawled with lice or scabies; Tyler’s flesh was inflamed, scratched and bleeding now like that of all the rest of her crew; and Domino once with her saturnine humor hypothesized that the real Mark of Cain comprised scratch-marks behind the knees or around one’s crotch. The Queen smiled at this almost with docility, and Beatrice, uncomprehending, flapped a stained T-shirt up and down upon her unwashed breasts to cool them down, burning as they were with the bites of hungry insects and of lonely men. And that little figure with the old, old face, sitting on the bed in this hotel room for which Beatrice’s trick had paid for an entire night, then used merely for an hour as he had used Beatrice, then departed, giving the key into Beatrice’s hands with his own variety of secondhand kindness, that witch, that arch-Canaanite, that ancient Maj sighed, and said: Domino, go and get that T.V. in the hallway there. Bring him in and we’ll talk to him about his happiness.

And so the half-toothless old transvestite, thirty-two years of age, came in and sat down on the bed between Domino and Beatrice and said: I came to San Francisco and started whoring at sixteen. Most of the people I started out with are gone or dead. There are only three of them around now.

Oh, come on, said Domino. Doesn’t that go for any group of people in sixteen years? She was actually trying to brighten him in her backhanded way. After his initial pleasure that somebody actually wanted him he’d become uneasy, almost alarmed. He could not comprehend why these women had requested his presence. — You got any bump? he whispered. I sure could use a little bump to bring myself like back into focus… — The blonde, who now grinned uproariously at the notion that she might under any circumstances give away drugs to strangers, felt as a rule entirely at home in the company of transvestites because they weren’t men anymore, so they did not want to use her sexually, and since they were also not quite women, they hardly competed with her for men. Exhausted by her own hatreds, she was pleased to express friendliness or even helpfulness, as she did toward, for instance, children, whenever they did not annoy her. And this quasi-female, skinny and ill, displayed sufficient signs of acquired immune deficiency for her to pity him and actually think good about him as she would of someone already safely dead.

This here, this my sister, said Beatrice with a big black-toothed grin, formally introducing Domino. — And that one over there, that’s our Mama. And she defends us and doan never hit us, so we love her so much.

Shyly, the transvestite hung his head. — You got any rock? he whispered.

How many friends you got? said the Queen. I mean real friends?

Not so many. I got a fortune cookie once that said it’s easier to make friends than it is to keep them, and, man, is that ever true. If I needed to fix or I was going to be sick, if I was hungry or needed a place to stay and I had no money, then there are two or three places I could go. Yeah, three friends. Three good friends. That’s better than a lot of people can say.

What’s your name?

Libby.

You remember me?

No.

You was stayin’ at that Hotel Seville last year, an’ your visitor fees be gettin’ too high, so Justin here had a little talk with ’em…

Oh yes yes yes yes yes.

An’ what if I was to say you could always stay with me, no questions asked?

What are you, some kind of cult?

Not exactly, child. Look into my eyes. What do you see?

Why, I see Christopher! He’s my boyfriend — well, my ex-boyfriend I guess I should say…

Hell! Sooner or later they’re all ex-boyfriends, the blonde put in with her trademark crooked smile. You know why? Because they’re all shitty! And I’m warning you, too, Maj—

Hush up, darling. You know I love you…

I — gosh… uh, after Christopher left me — well, that was two months ago but we were together for two years so I guess I can still talk about it — I started getting these waves of sadness. I knew I could never meet anybody like him again — smart, handsome, generous, a lawyer—’cause it had taken me fourteen years before I met him. And I’m not getting any younger.

Why did he leave you? asked the Queen.

He didn’t like my lifestyle.

Your whorin’?

Uh huh. And one day he was going to fly off to Boston, and he didn’t invite me. So I said: Well, if you’re not taking me, at least give me some money to get high tonight, because I’ll be missing you. — And he didn’t want to indulge my habit was how he put it, although I don’t have a habit; I try lots of different drugs, don’t stick to any one thing, so how could he have been so insensitive as to call me addicted? So I threw a tantrum and half wrecked his apartment. Then he gave me the money, but he said: You’ve thrown your last tantrum. — I didn’t pay him much attention, ‘cause he was always saying that…

So you didn’t pay him no mind, agreed the Queen. And then what?

And then it was over. And waves of sadness like an ocean kept filling up inside my room. I felt like I was drowning. I can’t stay in my room very long or I start to choke. That’s why you found me sitting outside in the hall…

How much you charge for head?

I go as low as five dollars. That’s rock bottom, you know, when I’m feeling really really needy for some medicine.

That’ll work, said Domino. Because we have a rule. If you’re one of those expensive prostitutes who charge five hundred bucks before you’ll swallow, then we can’t let you in. Because we’re exclusive.

Domino… sighed the Queen.

We’re the downtrodden. We’re the wretched of the earth. We’re inscribed — and I mean indelibly inscribed — with the Mark of Cain.

We feel happy, ’cause Mama always gives us presents, Beatrice said, smiling with every inch of her car-crash-ruined face. — If you want to be my brother and Domino’s brother you can be, and we’ll respect you, I promise, because we…

What do you mean, presents? Hey, can you spare a little rock, like just a little teeny-weeny bump, just so I can get a taste? I need the taste, I—

Hell, no, said Domino.

One night Strawberry ran away or maybe went to jail although if she had gone to jail one would have thought that she’d have used her statutory phone call on Dan Smooth, who was always willing to forward bail requests, but nobody heard from her; and while it was possible that she’d been murdered like the Capp Street girls who kept winding up in various zones of San Francisco either strangled or with their throats cut (one whore who’d gotten away said that it was two Hispanic men in a pickup truck, and another whore assured her neighbors with equal vigor that it was a greyhaired ex-cop), it seemed equally likely, if not more so, that she had simply grown exhausted with the tall man, whose self-denying rage (akin to holy asceticism) inevitably broke down everything and everybody whom he loved into a might-have-been; so after two or three days Beatrice spied his fists like shooting stars around a pay phone, ringing and ringing against that nickel-plated metal until his hands began to tear open; just as dark juice runs from the winepress, so the black blood spewed and spurted at every noisy blow, the flesh merely raw and superficially exposed, but the sight nonetheless pitiable for that, which is why a black whore in a metal kettle-hat and a shawl like a shower curtain kept lumbering around the incensed and despairing man as if she were a dancing bear, terrified yet fascinated, uttering hysterical laughter as she had done just two nights past when the cocktail glass on the sign for Jonell’s bar intoxicated her — a horrible sight, so Beatrice, whose sense of duty rose up with all the high dark corrugations of the border wall between Mexican and American California, flew panting to her Mama the Queen, who was sleeping inside the hulk of the Grand Southern Hotel on Mission between Fifteenth and Sixteenth, the Grand Southern having lately been burned out by accidents or ruthlessness unknown; Beatrice told the news, crying: I come running, running! but when those two arrived back in the Tenderloin by taxicab forty minutes later the tall man had gone and the phone was clean, so the Queen sleepily grumbled and clucked and laid her head in Beatrice’s lap on a bench in Boedekker Park ten yards from the black preacher who cried out: I was more wretched than you, but Jesus saved me. Jesus took my wretchedness away. Are you listening? Hallelujah! He died for me, I said! He took my wretchedness away. I was a user, but He took my wretchedness away, and now I ain’t no user no more. The Queen very faintly snored and blew a bubble through her nostril; Beatrice, bending over her, inhaled her familiar smoked-leather odor, closed her own eyes, and had begun dreaming of when she was a little girl in Oaxaca and she had seen them burning a wooden statue in a bonfire to complete some ceremony whose significance she had never understood; when she was shaken awake by the blood-caked hands of Justin. His dusty face had been worn clean by two tear-tracks. When Beatrice awoke, the Queen awoke also. She sat up and looked into his bloodshot eyes and then said to Beatrice: Okay, baby. Here’s five dollars. You go buy some powder for Sapphire… — and when Beatrice had risen and gone a few steps, she turned back, brushing her skirt, and saw the tall man sobbing in the Queen’s arms. — C’mere, little boy, the Queen whispered. Come closer to me…. — Beatrice turned away, jealous. She heard the Queen say: Maybe you need to make amends to her, Justin. Maybe she just don’t want you to beat her up no more… — to which the tall man chokingly replied: But she… — She gonna come back to you in two days, said the Queen. I know it. Try an’ cherish her. You hear me, child? — Passing a police wagon which loomed so black in the hot evening light, Beatrice, worrying about Strawberry but believing the Queen, returned to the hotel room where she was living that week, the room with incandescent doughnuts wrapped around the burnt-out light bulbs and knocked on the door of one-eleven where she got five dollars’ worth of powder from a dealer named Scoreboard, and after taking a little snort for herself (the Queen would never have minded), she knelt down, longing to pray to her dear friend the Virgin for Strawberry’s safety and happiness, but she knew that it was not permitted for her to pray to the Virgin anymore. Besides, the Queen was herself the Virgin, the righteous one who loved Beatrice, Strawberry, Justin, Domino and everyone, the dear lady who feasted them and cared for them and could do any of the things Beatrice remembered from the devotional stories; but two things had occurred to weaken Beatrice’s faith in the Queen. The first was her realization that wherever the Queen dwelled there was never any altar. The second was the episode just now with the transvestite Libby. When Domino led him in, Beatrice had been certain that she would now have a new brother, or sister, or whatever Libby desired to be, because her Queen, who could do everything, had sent for him and invited him into the royal family. And of course the Queen behaved as splendidly as the Virgin in continuing to love Domino most tenderly no matter what she did, and transform the blonde’s faults, even her gravest defect of malice, into childish stumblings which should in no way be blamed. But if the Queen were really Beatrice’s good friend Maria, then why had Domino succeeded in scaring Libby away? The Queen had not uttered a word of reproach. Yet surely the real Virgin would have dissuaded and prevented anyone who sought to block another from entering the house of God. (The Queen, who did indeed remain mostly as mild with Domino as Irene’s mother reminding her daughter not to soak the New Year’s rice cakes too long on New Year’s Eve, perhaps hoped — if she hoped at all — for titration between Domino and the world, that interesting chemical term referring to the slow and gradual addition of an acid to a base, or vice versa, until a neutral pH is reached. But any such strategy would have remained diabolically irrelevant to the Mexican girl’s doubts.) What a luxury it had been, to believe that the Queen and the Virgin were one! And now Beatrice did not know what to do. Lying down on her back, she pulled up her sweaty T-shirt and slowly masturbated, hoping to relax herself, but suddenly she glimpsed herself in the bathroom mirror and was ashamed. She went back out to find Sapphire, glimpsing through the doorway of a bar a black girl in a straw hat who, smiling faintly, slammed the dice down on the counter with a sound like cracking ice. Sapphire was supposed to be on Minna Street but she wasn’t there. Beatrice, heavy Beatrice, went sighing and panting to Clementina but Sapphire wasn’t there, either. On Sixth Street a man whose face resembled lava’s dull fire gazed at her. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt and a red skirt; and because the lava-faced man thought that she had a nice if black-toothed smile and a nice round face, almost clean and very shiny, because he liked big women, especially olive-faced ones like this one, this wide-hipped one with the colored bracelets hanging from her arms, he called out: Baby, you gonna go back with me today? I’m lonely! but Beatrice, whose feet were hurting so much now and whose back ached, turned and snarled: Doan play with me! I’m not up for it today! so he said: How about tomorrow? — Beatrice bent over and allowed herself to be sodomized beneath the murky blue mirrors of office windows, keeping up her spirits with the thought of the forty dollars which he had promised her, so that it didn’t hurt at all. Afterward he tipped her so that she got fifty. He was a nice man. In her heart Beatrice sang thank you to God and resolved to trust His plan for her, which meant believing in the Queen, for after all there was no purpose in going home. — A black-and-white pulled up. The cop beckoned her with one finger. She approached him with respect, hoping that he was Officer O’Malley, with whom she was in love a little because he never slapped her down like so many other policemen but joked with her instead, and sometimes even gave her a break if she whined long enough. Just the other night, when he’d busted her, his partner took a Polaroid of Officer O’Malley with his arm around Beatrice, the two of them standing against the white wall of the Mission Street substation with her head resting on his shoulder. But this policeman was not Officer O’Malley. She abased herself, so he let her off. — Thank you, officer, thank you! she cried. — Walk, said the cop. — I hear you, said Beatrice. She shuffled wearily halfway up the block, then flashed her fat and tired breasts at cars without result. — Should be right around the corner, said the tall man at dusk, so, thanking him, Beatrice turned the corner, met the Queen, kissed her lips. Returning to her hotel, she snorted the rest of Sapphire’s powder, then bought forty dollars’ worth of coal tar heroin from Scoreboard, longing to experience even by chemical means the tranquility which was the gift of nuns. She wanted to be a nun. Closing her eyes, she saw once again the old master of ceremonies in Merida with his death’s head face. He tipped his hat to her, crying out: Our Queen of the Yucatan — sweet as a pastry, hot as a candle, bright as the sun! And suddenly she wondered whether he might be the Devil. She had never considered that before. It was he who by filling her heart with the desire to dance before multitudes had led her into dancehalls and prostitution. And if that were true, what must the Queen be? How could Domino continually distrust the Queen, unless either the Queen or Domino herself were morally deficient? Beatrice, pierced now by a terrible anxiety, resolved to remake her life. Then she prepared the heroin and squezed it lovingly into her favorite vein, the big one on her left thigh, two hands below the crotch. Ay, it was good — so good! Her soul became incense-smoke rising up from the censer of her flesh; she was holy and excellent forever. The higher she rose, the more she could see, until it seemed to her that the whole world most preciously shimmered below her. Far to the southeast she could spy Oaxaca; there was her Papa’s house on its concrete platform, with ladders going up to the roof; and when she closed her eyes she could almost hear her dead mother calling her to come and eat. She cried. Against the pitted concrete wall of the house, a broom leaned. The concrete porch was clean. Now she was happy and drowsy. There were ladders and buckets in the dry dirt. There was a wheelbarrow halfway down the canyon. At that moment, shrugging off the blanket of heroin’s saintlike peace, Beatrice longed to go home even though she knew that there was nothing in that place for her. — Do you have children? a john had asked her just the other day. — No, I want one but I kinda think I can’t have one no more, she laughed. I can’t have any kids. The dumb doctor said I could. The clinic said no. — Her son, the rape-child with his tripas hanging out, where was he now?

The next time she saw Sapphire, which was three nights later, under the Stockton tunnel, Beatrice, who after trying and trying to get business late on that streetlit evening, raising her T-shirt, flashing her big round breasts at the stunned drivers in their torpid little cars, had finally made twenty for blowing a fat black businessman, ran out and bought five dollars’ worth of powder, and after taking two snorts for herself (didn’t a girl deserve a commission? Wouldn’t Sapphire tell her go ahead if Sapphire could speak?) gave the rest to Sapphire, who swarmed mewlingly into her arms. Strawberry was back, and the tall man was already cursing and punching her face.

The Queen said to Beatrice: You’re carryin’ some bad blood in your heart. I can smell it.

Seeing that her dear lady with the old, old face was not judging her but merely worrying over and sorrowing over her, Beatrice, who was chewing Mexican candy, felt ashamed and tender all at once. At that moment she would have died for her Queen. How much easier life would be, if such moments endured! Running into the black woman’s arms, she sobbed, her brittle English cracking and breaking as it always did when she was agitated: And Santa Claus didn’t give me nothing for Christmas, but he give me my Mama. You always my Mama. I wanna love you. I wanna be with you. I wanna marry with you. If you ever come Mexicali, you doan never pay your hotel, come my house. I ask my other Mama already and she say okay. And I gonna come running, running to get you and take you home so you can stay with me forever. I’m gonna meet your bus and fuck you all night ’cause you’re my Mama.

Oh, please, said Domino. How can you ask your other Mama anything? She’s dead.

Hush up, Dom. Let the girl be. And you hush up, too, Beatrice. Try an’ enjoy life. When you gonna teach us all those Mexican dances you know? I never been to Mexico; I wanna learn ’em. We could have a party with some music and everything.

Why don’t you ever listen to music, Maj? Domino interrupted eagerly. You can borrow my headphone radio anytime.

Thank you, darlin’. You know that song “Gypsy Queen”? That’s my song.

Angry and jealous, the Mexican girl whispered rapidly in the Queen’s ear: I told my Mama I lose my money, I lose my twenty dollar from my new boyfriend I meet last night, and my Mama doan say nothing but Domino say stupida, you always stupida, Beatrice! and then I cry.

She thrust her half-eaten candy at the Queen. The Queen took a bite, but not a big enough one to please Beatrice, who shouted no, no, no! bit off a big piece, chewed it, then tongued it passionately into the Queen’s mouth.

The summer’s back broken, Tyler drove unsweatily past Q Street but did not turn off to Dan Smooth’s house even though the traffic light winked meaningfully. His mother was not well. Looking right and left, he glimpsed bunkered lights and light dripping out of dingy Victorians. Then he drove on, proceeding an entire block to the Zebra Club, and parked beneath a billboard which proclaimed him and all other creatures LUCKY.

He tried to decide what he was going to say to his mother, who had scarcely addressed him since the last time he’d visited her, when he mentioned the false Irene. Should he tell her that he and that one were quits, and that he’d taken up instead with a crack-addicted ghetto prostitute who practiced black magic? The eyes narrowed in his grey, grey face, and he sat unmoving in his car.

A long train went dully by; he heard the sound. At the shopping malls when the trains passed on the levee, a fence kept you so far away that you couldn’t really hear them. They seemed to glide in silence. But when you lived close enough you could hear that long, slow, heavy sound.

He sat there for half an hour. (Meanwhile Dan Smooth was reading an anarchist quarterly called The Raven which contained an article called “Children Abusing Adults — Rule 43.”) Finally he started the engine again and drove to the supermarket, where he bought his mother groceries.

A shot of tequila? said Loreena.

Yeah.

That sounds good. Fuck it. Only half an hour before closing time. I’ll have one, too.

Cheers, said Tyler.

Cheers. I’ll need some money now, dear.

How much?

I knew you’d do that to me. Let’s see… I’m a little bit fuzzy… Two twenty-five.

Here.

Thank you. You’re always so generous, Henry. Man, that tastes good. I just love that tequilla. That’ll put hair on your chest. Or maybe take it off.

In my own case I can’t remember, so maybe I can see your chest and dope it out.

Now you’re pushing the bucket, mister, said Loreena, but then to his astonishment she lifted up her T-shirt and flashed rosy-nippled, round and perfect breasts.

Thank you, he said. That was good of you.

I learned that trick from Beatrice.

Surprise, surprise.

You know, it’s such a hot night, Loreena said. I figured after I got off work I’d head for Jonell’s and then maybe the Cinnabar, and after that I’d love to go skinnydipping out at Ocean Beach.

Tyler immediately became sad because he wanted to be with the Queen and now he would have to disappoint Loreena. — I’ll be back if I can, he said. I have to go make some money.

Loreena’s ancient face grimaced back down into its habitual mask of weary disgust, and she said: Well, drive carefully, Henry, okay?

And he wondered which would have been the more enlightened act — to go with Loreena and make her happy for an evening, loving her as the Queen loved everybody, or to go to the Queen and literally love her? — I don’t know where I’m going anymore, he muttered.

That was what he did now, night after night. Passing Strawberry up against the wall of the twenty-four-hour carwash with the hollows of her eyes filled with unreadable light and light drooling from her mouth like some customer’s sperm, passing Chocolate who was grinning and clenchfisted as she leaned up against the slimy wall-tiles of the Wonderbar late at night, trying not to shiver and making sure she stared down every car that came, Tyler wandered in through the back door to the red stools and red love seats, the kingdom of the Wonderbar where Domino, waiting to do business with someone whose identity would soon shock Tyler, said to him: Are you married?

Only to my brother’s dead wife, he replied. How’s the Queen today?

You know, said Domino, I don’t exactly have contempt for you; I don’t exactly think you’re a coward…

Well, I’m glad to hear that, said Tyler sarcastically.

Are you laughing at me?

No, sweetheart. I would never laugh at you.

Well, then why do you — oh, fuck it.

Like all the brilliant women he knew who kept crying out that people made no sense and whose dream it was to flee everything and work at a Dairy Queen somewhere in Mississippi, Domino had visions which life would never live up to. Her brightest vision was that everyone would love her. Her life asserted that everyone hated her.

So how’s the Queen? he said.

You have a thing for her, huh? That’s rich. That’s fuckin’ rich. To think that ole Maj herself is finally getting a piece of dick! That sleazy old lowlife Maj — ha, ha! Hey, Henry, how does it feel to be dating a nigger?

Feels okay to me.

And your sister-in-law was a gook, wasn’t she? Smooth told me…

Oh, so you’re dicking Smooth? he said, trying to get off the subject of Irene and the Queen.

No, he’s a honky. I don’t do honkies, since I’m one myself.

My, my, said Tyler. Just who enjoys the honor of being done by you?

You wanna do me, Henry?

You’re a mighty beautiful woman, Domino.

Well, then I guess you have quite an opportunity, now, don’t you, she said with her trademark venomous bitterness. (When she was a little girl there was something wrong with the car. They went to the mechanic’s. He was greasy and smoking. There was a naked picture on the wall. It made her ashamed. She couldn’t have been more than three. Her mother was changing her brother’s diapers.)

Of course I’d love to sleep with you, Domino, Tyler said. Buy you a drink?

Rum and Coke, she purred instantly.

Rum and Coke for Domino, please, he said to the barmaid.

Okay, dear.

Now, tell me this, said Domino. What are your intentions regarding the Queen? Because it affects all of us. Don’t think we haven’t all seen you sneaking around.

What are my intentions? he muttered. I don’t know.

Smooth said you’re a detective. He said you’re a lousy stinking cop.

I bet he didn’t put it quite that way.

Well, are you a cop?

Nope.

Are you a detective?

Yes I am.

Why, you sonofabitch. You even admit it. You’re spying on us all. You want to bring us all down. And you enjoy it, don’t you? You’re good at it.

Oh, once you get used to the databases, you just kind of whip in and out, he muttered.

And you’re not ashamed?

I’m not out to hurt you, he said. I promise.

What are you about?

Just chilling out with your Queen, he said.

You want to get her? You want to destroy her?

No.

But you like her?

Sure.

You love her? That stinking old Maj!

I don’t know her that well, he said.

And how do you feel about the rest of us?

I think you’re all great. But you’re the best, of course, Domino.

Oh, don’t fucking patronize me. You men are all the same. All you want is to use us. You don’t give a damn, really, do you? You don’t give a fucking damn.

Here’s your rum and Coke, dear, said Loreena.

Domino uplifted it without thanks and thrust her long grey tongue between the ice cubes.

And for you, Henry? said the barmaid like the dreamy Queen speaking through closed eyes, lips parted as if to kiss some ghost which he could not see. Your usual?

Yeah, why not, he said.

Look, said Domino. I’m reminding you of my interest in all this. I’m reminding you to cut me in. You never would have met the Queen without me.

Honk four times, he said agreeably.

Listen, she said. Listen. I’m trying to tell you that I…

I am listening, Domino.

Oh, go to hell.

I go there regularly.

You think you got the Queen pinned down now, don’t you, fucker? You think she’s yours? Well, you’re never going to own her. I can see you’re one of those types who just thinks he can own a woman. Well, women have got it in for men like that.

I don’t need to own her, Domino. Why buy when you can rent?

Yeah, how many other thousand guys you think she’s already fucked? the blonde snarled.

Dan Smooth, who’d just now strutted in, raised his forefinger, and Tyler thought: Okay, kiddies, here we go. Blessed art the peacemakers.

You remember the proverb of the Sadducees, Domino?

Fuck, no, pervert, and I don’t care, either.

Well, Smooth explained, not a bit perturbed by this less than eager pupil, the Sadducees asked Jesus about a man who’d married his dead brother’s wife according to the Law of Moses — you know, he had to take care of his brother’s gal — well, then he died, and his brother married her, and he died, and so on and so on, until all seven brothers had had her one by one, and then they all died, and so did she. Her cunt must have been tired by then. I wonder what it smelled like… But the Sadducees were trying to trip Jesus up, see. That’s why they raised the issue in the first place. It was a sting, you see; it was entrapment. We’ve all been there before. They said to Him: Whose wife is she going to be in Heaven? (Because they didn’t believe in the Resurrection at all.) But Jesus got them, Domino. Because you know what He said? He said: You are wrong, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the Authority of God. For in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in Heaven. How do you like that?

So in Heaven she fucks them all or not? said Domino, intrigued in spite of herself.

What do you think?

Sure, said Tyler after a moment. Sure she does. She’s got to.

What do you mean, she’s got to? You misogynist!

Tyler rubbed his chin and said: No, no, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant, that would be the right thing to do. She would want to. They all took care of her and let’s assume they loved her, so let’s assume she was at least grateful — doesn’t it flatter you if a john loves you?

Now we’re getting personal, said Domino.

Yes we are, Smooth gloated. Go ahead. Domino. Tell us what it’s like for you, and what color their ooze is.

Oh, knock it off, Smooth, said Tyler.

You’re always telling me to knock it off. Why don’t you knock it off?

Knock what off?

I love it when men fight, said Domino.

I bet you do, said Tyler. And I concede in advance. I don’t have any answers. But Danny boy here knows everything. In my job, you know, I sometimes ask a lot of questions. If the witnesses are able to answer every question, you know that some of what they say isn’t true.

So they fall in love with you sometimes? Smooth pursued, paying no attention to this objection. Indeed, it seemed as if he’d taken complete charge of the conversation by now, not so much overcoming arguments as reducing them to demonstrations of disrespect equivalent to the loud cries of a scattered search party.

Uh, they do, uh huh, replied the blonde with surprising coyness.

And that’s personal?

Uh huh.

Well, my theory is that if you keep saying it’s personal you must be flattered, because otherwise you’d just say straight up that you don’t give a damn whether they love you or not.

Domino laughed. — Maybe so, she said.

Now, that being the case, I think you also would do the nice thing if you were in that Sadducee wife’s situation up in Heaven.

If all those angel husbands pay me first!

I need coffee, said Smooth. I’m falling asleep.

You want a toot? said Domino.

Oh, that’s nice of you. But let’s try this little coffee shop for a minute…

I mean, whatever, said Domino, irritated.

The Vietnamese coffee shop at Mason and Eddy had lace curtains around the windows so that you could see only the silhouettes of the shoulders inside. Smooth ordered a Vietnamese coffee, jet-black, slow-dripping into a metal cylinder of condensed milk. Tyler chose a can of root beer. — Nothing for me, said Domino. I don’t like these goddamned foreign places. I bet that coffee of yours is full of ground up cockroaches.

At the next table sat a mother with a six-year-old boy.

I’d like to get into that, Smooth said.

Cut it out, Tyler said.

The Queen ran silently in and kissed Tyler on the lips. Smooth got her a chair. She sat beside Tyler, holding his hand. — Hi, Maj, said Domino. I missed you…

Smooth craned his head, smiling and winking at the six-year-old, whose mother, desolate about something, sat close-eyed with her head in her hands.

Hello, mister, the child said.

Why, hello there! said Smooth in his most friendly manner. Are you full?

Yeah.

Is your smooth little tummy all full?

Yeah, said the child shyly.

Now I have a question for you. Do you like to answer questions?

Yeah.

All right then. Here it is. What do you think happens to all that food in your stomach? Smooth asked the child in a calm and even tone.

It rolls around and around and around, he said.

And then? said Smooth, leaning forward.

And then when you have to go to the bathroom it comes out and it’s all brown.

Hmm, said Smooth. Basically correct.

Oh, leave him alone, said the Queen.

Now, Maj, what’s really going on? Domino said.

With what?

With you and Henry. By the way, I need some rock. You got any white girl on you, Maj?

Hush your mouth, bitch. Can’t you see we’re in a public place?

Maj, I really need something…

The Queen sighed and embraced the blonde, pretending to kiss her while she spat into her mouth. Smooth, who did not use drugs, beamed ironically. Tyler felt a little jealous. Domino clung to the Queen, trembling as she gobbled her saliva down. Finally the Queen pulled away and said: That’s enough.

Thank you, Maj. Now I don’t hurt anymore.

Very tastefully done, Smooth said. Now, Maj, what’s the prophecy?

The Queen pulled the Enemy’s Book out of the pocket of her grubby parka, closed her eyes, opened it, and lowered her dark, scarred little forefinger onto the tiny print. She opened her eyes. But just as she was about to read, the mother at the adjoining table, who had been wandering the cobwebbed corridors of her own despair, leaned forward, her eyes shining, and said: Excuse me, lady, but have you been saved?

Why, how did you know, dear? said the Queen gently.

Well, I saw you have the Book… Now that I’m a born-again Christian I just feel so free.

I’m so glad, said the Queen.

Politically I hate so many people; politically I guess I hate almost everyone, so I’m so grateful to God for forcing me to love.

That’s nice, Tyler said.

The way I look at it, blurted Domino, if God is omniscient or however you say it, then when you’re stepping on an ant, God feels what that ant feels. You’re doing that to God.

Weren’t you two ladies kissing just now? the mother said. You’re not sodomites, are you?

Why, no, ma’am, Smooth inserted. Didn’t you hear what I was saying to your little boy? I was specifically warning him against such practices. In this world, you know, you have to beware. Nothing is as it seems.

Is that true? said the mother to her son. Did you say thank you to the nice man?

Thank you, the child said glumly.

And remember my advice, son, said Smooth in his best genially distinguished manner. You know. About digestion.

The mother inched her chair nearer to the Queen and inquired: Are you politically active?

Well, now, I guess that depends.

I just fell in love with Bob Dole.

Imagine that, said the Queen sarcastically.

I’ve always been a conservative at heart, but it wasn’t until Ronald Reagan became President that I really got politically active. Reagan — well, that man helped me find my roots. I guess I just fell in love with Bob Dole’s smile. I was out there campaigning for him so hard, going from door to door.

Allrightie, the Queen said. Well, ma’am, we all certainly have enjoyed visiting with you, but now we need to do a little prayin.’

What church do you belong to?

First Church of Canaan, Reformed.

I’m not familiar with that church. Well, God bless you.

And watch out for that Mark of Cain, ma’am. Now, Smooth, in answer to your question, I do believe we have a prophecy right down here. Are you ready?

Ready, but pessimistic.

Africa—

Henry, you know that’s my private name.

Sorry, Maj. But I was wondering something. If the prophecy’s bad, what happens if you don’t read it? If we don’t know it and refuse to acknowledge it, then maybe it can’t come true.

This guy’s a motherfuckin’ ostrich, said Domino, and the mother at the next table gasped at the obscenity.

Henry, magic don’t work like that. Well, maybe for some people it can, but not here, not for us.

If I’d done something or said something different, if I’d been somehow nicer or I don’t know what, then maybe I could have prevented Irene’s suicide. The future is—

How will you ever know? The future, well, I only ever seen it come by once. Now just keep quiet, Henry. Don’t say nothing; don’t do nothing. Whatever it says, we don’t have to be scared.

This is starting to give me the creeps, said Domino.

Well, it gave her the creeps! laughed the Queen, for the mother, seizing her child by the hand, had risen to run away, casting many a baleful glare.

Smooth opened his mouth wide, snake-flickered his tongue at the woman, and said: This is America, and I can look at you if you can look at me.

The woman flushed crimson. Tyler was ashamed of Smooth.

Now then, said the Queen. For the prophecy we got Numbers chapter 13 verse 17, and it says: Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up into the Negeb yonder, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many…”

Okay, said Tyler. We get the idea, Maj. So the vigs are already sniffing around, or soon will be. But I figure it’s not the end yet, because they doubted God, so He delayed the conquest for forty years.

Well, no parallel is exact, Henry, and I wouldn’t push the issue with prophecy, either. It’s not as if there’s a Negeb Street on a hill in the Castro where somebody’s peeking at us, see. Let’s all agree that Maj’s finger is inspired. I believe in her. I know all of us do. But numbers don’t always translate—

Why not?

Oh, how the fuck should I know? Maybe because then the Egyptians would hear of it or the trumpets would resound or some dumb thing…

I don’t know, Tyler said stubbornly, narrowing his eyes. If this is true, and they’re here to spy us out, then why can’t we go spy them out? I’ll do it if you want; I’m expendable…

Hee, hee, hee! laughed Smooth. Was that what your sister-in-law thought?

In just the same way that in San Francisco it is often sunnier south of Market Street, so the prostitutes, pimps, thieves and dealers, tiring at last of their own rumors, began to regain their confidence that they could survive the epoch of the vigs. Some hoped to hide and sleep, others to set the streets on fire. Most, of course, remained convinced that nothing would ever happen to disturb their lives. The crazy whore was rapt with optimistic analysis and prophecy, clutching Domino’s sleeve and crying: I know one man who’s bragging that he’s got all the money in the world. And he’s known for going to coffee shops to suck the nipples of Oriental girls for at least half an hour. And he — but Domino wrinkled her nose and said: Shut up, you crazy old bug.

All the whores had faith. If something happened, they could look after themselves. Later, when everything was over, it would seem in retrospect that those last few months were easier and more pleasant than any other time they could remember. Drugs were cheap and dates were plentiful. They loved their Queen, of course, but without her, life wouldn’t be much different. Their lives possessed a certain wholeness now; they couldn’t imagine that the circle might ever be broken. But on a rainy night not long after that long conversation in the Vietnamese restaurant, the Queen, who on the streets and in warehouses, ghost factories, and crack hotels usually seemed to be as imperially at home as a Korean wife in that household command center, the kitchen, now sat staring moodily into the baby food jar which comprised the bowl of her crack pipe. Tyler was sitting at her feet watching her while big drops rang against the warehouse roof in a fusillade and she sighed and began to pick out bits of toilet paper from the turbid water inside the jar. — Any goldfish swimming around in there? he asked, but she only smiled faintly. Suddenly she dashed the liquid out on the concrete floor. He saw matchheads, a rust-brown powder, a dead ant.

Henry, I want you to do something for me, she said.

All right, he said.

I want you to go to Vegas and find out what that Brady man’s up to. I got a bad feeling. I got a real bad feeling.

Tyler smiled sadly, unable to reply. He was making a mess of a surveillance job he really couldn’t afford to make a mess of — another potentially lucrative infidelity case in Alameda, which meant that he could have padded hours and mileage; he already had the husband nailed; but the wife wanted photographs and she wanted them now. So much for that client. Anxiety localized itself in his stomach, then metastasized to his heart, and his hands began to sweat. He longed to please the Queen by doing something useful for her, and he also knew that no human being could really do anything useful for her. He wanted Brady’s venture to be innocuous, and he already knew it wasn’t. He wondered how difficult it would be. He was only Henry Tyler; he didn’t have what it took. He felt that he would honestly do more good by staying out of this and letting the Queen go, but if he did, then Irene’s skeleton would be sitting on his face again at night, pissing ants and spiders into his mouth. He knew that no matter what happened he would do the wrong thing. Suspended above his bottomless future, he hung clinging miserably to a stretching rope. He almost couldn’t bear it. His breastbone ached. Let it be cancer, he thought. Then at least it will be over. But he wanted to live. He wanted to be fulfilled. It was all hopeless.

I know what you’re thinkin’, child, said his Queen who loved him. It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.

Tyler knelt before her and sobbed.

Just as the tall man’s face gradually lightened from a deep black-brown upon the crown of his shaved head to fresh ocher pits just above his eyes, so the sky, too, dimmed down its darkness, then began to flush in parts. The Queen yawned. Dawn was coming.

The day that Tyler drove to the airport, passing many darkly spreading trees and white houses in Daly City on which fog came smearing and smooching down so that the world’s end, the end of all vision, lay very close, it was sunny in the Tenderloin where Justin, tall and lean, grew like a cornstalk in a dark army jacket beside the wall of Jonell’s Bar, his collar pushed up and his cap pulled down, listening and watching while he seemed to be but surveying inner space. The loud sermon across the street remained on an untuned channel of his soul’s radio.

Beatrice said to him: Well, the Christians, they have different beliefs. I doan believe in it. I go with our Queen or with Strawberry. She is a Christian. I go with her, and they sing or they cry, and they speak about that kind of happiness for the dead people.

Go and make some money, bitch, said the tall man, and she fled, pretending that she was back home in Oaxaca where a big turkey dipped its neck outside her mother’s house and inside it was very dark with the dirt floor. The walls were planks stamped SUPPLY OFFICER: AIRFORCE BASE — CA. Just behind the planks, an infant cried and cried: her little nephew. She tried to see her Papa but she couldn’t. And all her little brothers were grown up. The house was empty. Where was everyone she knew? She wanted to dance for them. The ceiling planks were black from cooking. When it rained, the water came in. Quiet little flies crawled everywhere. On the cement stood one big bed for the whole family, but the bed was empty. A little girl stood rapt with crossed legs, pressing her face against the bed while she looked at white cartoon cowboys and horses. That was Beatrice. Her little brother spat on the floor. So he hadn’t grown up after all.

One of the preacher’s lieutenants approached. The tall man raised a single eyebrow.

The lieutenant said: Man, I was paralyzed for fifteen years. I was a drug addict. Man, Jesus healed me. He healed me! So I wasn’t sick no more. You listening? Hallelujah!

You seen my forehead? replied the tall man in a gravelly whisper.

What about it, man? We ain’t got time for personal vanity here!

Look upon me, boy. Look upon my mark. You seen my mark?

That’s just an abscess, man. Listen to me. When a user gets touched by the Holy Ghost, he ain’t a user no more. He’s free! Amen!

Get the fuck away from me, said the tall man.

Jesus can save you, the lieutenant pleaded. Don’t stay with the Devil. Don’t let yourself be damned.

The tall man rose to his complete and immense height and almost playfully tapped the lieutenant in the chest. The lieutenant fell backward. He shouted: I said forgive him, turn away, praise God! But Brady’s Boys are gonna get him, hear me, Lord! Brady’s Boys are coming to town…

I’ll tell you a truth as long and naked as a cocktail waitress’s leg: Tyler did not like Las Vegas. Only for a check with more than one zero on it — or for his Queen — would he have consented to leave home, venturing beyond the white-candied mountains of his Sierras spiced with treetops. There were three new hotels and then there was Feminine Circus, they said. Already as Las Vegas spread her thighs before him like a collage of silicon chips on the tan plain, he saw the black pyramid of mediocrity like a dull jewel, the Sphinx crouching out in front. That was the cheap easy place where he had to go. That was the Hotel Luxor. John and Brady and the rest wouldn’t be caught dead there. They all had suites at Feminine Circus.

The pink ticket said:

There was another kind of virtual reality, too, as the procession of tourists who went up Las Vegas Boulevard from the MGM Grand to the Luxor learned when they reached the corner trodden with soiled fliers, and at this corner a boy stood trying to pass the fliers out discreetly folded so that they didn’t look like what they were. A man accepted one, and as he bemusedly opened it, the silicone-pumped boobs leaped out and he, his wife and the children opened their mouths and then he strode back to the guy and said: Listen, buddy. You, take this back! I don’t want this crap.

This ad, which Tyler philanthropically retrieved from the unfazed herald of good times, described a young Guatemalan girl (later he forgot whether she was “beautiful,” “eager,” “sexy” or “submissive”) — and no agency, oh, by no means; so of course what he got was a blonde from Alberta in a red Jeep Wrangler; she said that the hundred and twenty-five an hour was just for the agency, and she wanted a tip. He made it four hundred and she sulked because she usually got eight hundred to a thousand, which at first he did not believe. But maybe it was true, because during the half-hour that she stayed and fidgeted, the agency called every ten minutes in amazement that she was still there.

Usually I’m in and out in five minutes, she explained. That way the guy doesn’t have time to get mad before I’m done.

What can you do in five minutes? Even a blow job takes longer than that!

Well, I give him a full body massage, but he has to use his own hand.

It took him a moment to calculate the sum of these convolutions. — You mean he pays you a thousand bucks to jerk off to you?

Yeah, she shrugged. I guess you could put it that way. I’m not really a sex girl.

What are you then?

Let’s just say when I’m through they usually don’t do it again! she said with the same valley girl smile of the digitized Queen of Diamonds whose lavender breasts got obscured every second by the PLAY 5 COINS sign. — But sometimes I do get repeat customers. It still amazes me. But in Vegas it’s different. This is the big money, man. You get high rollers and they don’t care what they spend.

I guess that means you’ve got to be going, huh? said Tyler.

Why are you like that? At least I’m not a Brady Girl — I’m real, I’m me, I’m—

Then can I touch you?

Nobody touches me, mister.

Oh. So you’re not real, either. Hey, listen, did you ever hear of the Queen of the Whores?

Wake up, mister, she said, rising. We live in a democracy. And by the way, I stayed an extra five minutes. Do I get a bonus?

Nope.

Shrugging, the blonde dialled the agency and said: OK, I’m leaving. He’s not going to give me any more.

It’s kind of different here in Vegas, he said in his best hayseed voice.

She lit a cigarette. — The other thing that’s different about Vegas is that in all these hotels, even the real fancy hotels, the windows never open.

Because the people who lose big money might…?

Exactly. Same reason there are no long flights of stairs.

She was already putting her coat on and then she left him — rich, beautiful, contemptuous, and he felt only a little more empty than before.

Even divinities such as Jonas Brady need to procure business licenses, and although their articles of incorporation may list for their addresses such public-deflectors as John’s office address at Rapp and Singer (my client does not want to be contacted, John explained), still they need to get financing somewhere, and so for a snoop such as Henry Tyler of Tyler & Associates, Investigative Services, it’s but a fingersnap’s worth of effort to run a T.U. or a T.R. W. or any other number of credit checks, cognizant of the fact that Brady must have filled out a loan application or two in his time. No mention of cottonwood trees, but here on the blue computer screen crawled and quivered electronic proof of a pinball machine franchise, then a conspiracy to market office supplies, then the Sleep-O Hotel chain, each of them affixed in the credit bureau’s memory to a name, an address, a social security number. Back in San Francisco, Tyler had run a Uniform Commercial Code listing and learned that Brady was by definition a big shot: he owned a lot of secured collateral. — And it’s Union Bank, too, he muttered. That’s where John always refers his clients. Okay, and what about the Dun and Brad? LOOKING UP HOST, it says. Oh, come on.

The next day more than sixty thousand people went between the outspread legs of the fallen angel of Feminine Circus, which from street level could be apprehended only as an asymmetrical polygon, blue and green, with so many angles bulking, sprawling, stretching and towering, but it did have a feminine head (again, à la Sphinx, like a construction paper cutout); it possessed sapphire blue triangular eyes beneath which people streamed slowly in like H. G. Wells’s Eloi going down to be eaten by the Morlocks. That was the day Feminine Circus was officially open, so they’d turned the sky on over the Sea of Love, filling it with multiple rainbow sunsets. Yes, the heat was on, pipesmoke swirled around the phony trees, and the passionless attended with big change cups between their thighs, watching the whirling oranges and BARs, scarcely looking at whatever money came out, but not unhappy. One man bantered: I put a nickel in, but it’s her machine, so she gets the winnings! — The robot angel Valentina waved goodbye in her pink rocket, curtseyed, and ascended a cable, hung there between sun and moon until people forgot her, and crept inconspicuously back down to repeat the performance another billion times. Another crescent moon crossed the sky slowly, and stars came out. Slot machines sang all around.

Oh, that’s kinda neat, a girl said.

Tyler had made a mistake. He’d judged by the Thursday night crowd. They were not sleepwalkers after all; this was the weekend now and this hotel, this incredible jungle, was alive with gambling monkeys and tigers! He could not believe how many people were passing so quickly in so many directions, drinks and cigarettes in hand; at all times cleaning ladies swept that carpet of phosphorescent flowers, combing the litter into their mouths-on-sticks; one told him: I seen Robinson Crusoe’s and I seen the Sphinx and all them others, but this is the greatest! It’s the biggest, it’s the best, it’s so beautiful! — and Tyler looked around me and saw that it was! — especially after a few drinks. The waitresses in short black skirts wiping tables with one hand, holding round trays of drinks in the other, families marching down the glowing carpet toward the elevators, some with cocktail glasses in hand; the calm, happy heads of the resting gamblers sitting around tables, lights slopping and lushing around, were all so busy that they reminded Tyler of the brochure with Egyptian symbols on it at the Luxor which read: Keno While You Sleep — Play More, Win More! Meanwhile the girl on the loudspeaker was as happy and amazed as if she’d just given birth to Jesus, crying out: Mrs. R. D. Winkler, Mrs. R. D. Winkler, you have a feminine phone call! I have a feminine phone call for Mrs. R. D. Winkler! — for, just as the gorgeous black waitress who used to work at the Horseshoe downtown said: After being down there with all those gamblers, you get used to it. You have to perform. — No doubt that was what Mr. Slapper, the P.R. guy, had in mind when, escorting Mr. and Mrs. Rapp, Mr. and Mrs. Singer, John and Celia, Roland and Amanda into the very spacious and bright cafeteria (where an off-duty Greek goddess picked up a tray and stepped into line), he said (with a smile like the long crack between a cocktail waitress’s puffed-up breasts): First of all, we call all of our employees ringleaders. Feminine Circus was connected with the Big Top until 1969. When you’re onstage, always delivering, you put on your best performance. — Passing couples upturned their heads, looking at everything; nothing in any one part of Feminine Circus was quite the same; that was a triumph in which the little Cupid in the American Girl Lounge seemed to delight, for he moved and twisted in his chair, convulsed his hairy arms, threw back his head and laughed at the stars on the ceiling.

Then a woman screamed: Ohhhhh! — She’d hit a big jackpot. The coins began to patter out. Crowds clotted behind her and watched as the coins kept coming.

Suddenly an arrow comprised of neon lights began to shimmer on the floor, and a siren went off. A melodious female voice said: Ladies and gentlemen, the adult area of Feminine Circus is now open for play. Adults only, please!

The woman who’d won the jackpot looked around, and found herself husbandless. Masculine Circus, Brady’s playland for heterosexual women, remained a mere blueprint.

Following the long line of men, Tyler passed through a glowing pink door…

In addition to his cottonwood business, Mr. Brady was, as we see, an impressario. Why should I beat around some whore’s bush? He was the founder, chief executive officer, and fifty-one percent owner of Feminine Circus Enterprises, dedicated to the philosophy that love is the first and final cause. When I looked him up in Who’s Who in Retail Management, I read a competitor’s description of his face: “as vividly ugly as a fast food parking lot at night when a security light glares down on the pitted asphalt.” But the competitor, who was bankrupted by Feminine Circus, was hardly handsomer. Let’s not get in the way of love; let’s not halt love’s caravans, sexual traffickings. Love’s poison makes us strut like birds; then a woman’s ten outstretched fingers slide slowly down a man’s back. What comes of it? Wait nine months, till the baby sits serene on its mother’s lap, utterly contented by the writhing of its fingers. Is that love? Now the creature walks; again and again the mother bends faithfully down to the child whose hand she holds. Not much longer, and the child pulls away to be swallowed up in child armies. In the playground love marches with little boys stalking birds slyly, to pelt them with sand; when the birds scatter, little boys throw sand in little girls’ eyes instead, loving their screams. As soon as the weeping’s over, back come the boys, grinning, sand dribbling between clenched fingers, and the girls suspect no evil; being only at the beginning of life’s tortures, they haven’t yet learned to read the malignancy of other faces. Some never do. We call them retarded. This is the story of Brady, Tyler, and the Queen; but first it’s the story of a man who loved retarded girls, loved them with the tranquil smile and faraway glance of a doctor, not the other way at first, the way people leap up to watch a car accident, and I will tell you what happened on his journey for dear love when the world divided into armies.

(Could you allow me a driblet of authorial commentary right here, please? I merely want to say how embarrassed I am to introduce a new character so late in this novel — moreover, a character without a name. Dan Smooth and the FBI both know who he is, but his name is one hundred percent irrelevant; he’s but a puppet, a placeholder for our plot, a supplier to the grand machine known as Feminine Circus. I’m of two minds as to whether we even need him at all, and if I let his name slip, he might take up more than his allotted space, or possibly we’d get attached to him. Most of the chickens and pigs I’ve eaten didn’t have names.)

Growing up in hot California towns, our hero didn’t yet know himself because trees hung heavy and silent, obscuring the children from their shadows; overhanging roofs nipped the light like hatched clamshells, eating children every evening when the bicycles came home. He and his best friend used to masturbate together at his house or his best friend’s house because that was how the soldiers in love’s fight impelled each other, lying side by side in the stench of suspended breathing, not yet driven to attack for the booty of breasts and soft thighs; in those days when it was just beginning he knew only his self and his craving that he had to release with both hands. His best friend said that a special way was to hang naked from pull-up bars until the penis swelled and jetted; he never tried that. That autumn when the rains fell like blood he began to think beyond the fact of his yearning, trying to imagine what girls’ bodies must be like, how to kiss without butting noses, which way the slit went, who opened whose legs which way. The ransom that he’d soon take drew him to devour any distance between himself and girls; he glared at his best friend for getting in his way. Mustered armies faced off at school, watching, wanting, not yet grappling the veterans’ tricks of fawning and pleasing; they knew only desperation. — Some say it’s but compensation, this awardment of flattery’s skills, for the sagging breasts and soft-ons which veterans must bear, but that’s not so, for the great captains, soul-takers, hymen-breakers, phallus-notchers, own both tricks and strength. They take the prize night after night. — His best friend joined that detachment, learning how to scan the swish of skirts, seeing which leg was past, which leg to come, but our hero, less lucky, was doomed to fall victim to one of the girl-captains who charged, mauled him to the ground and bridled him with the golden bridle. Her brain crawled like a balled-up octopus, writhing with need, straining to possess him forever. Suckered attractions burst from her eyeballs, flickering like lashes to lure him in; they licked out of her ears, eavesdropping on his every word’s weakness; they pried her lips apart into a smile, stretched down into her fingertips to caress the world hummingly, and then, full-bent, bowstringed her invasion. Stalking him even as he hunted others, she gobbled up his shadow, gained nourishment from that meal, crouched behind his unwary heels. There is no one quite so self-absorbed as a girl squeezing out her blackheads in front of the mirror. Yet even then she never stopped thinking of him, prizing him from the corner of her eye. He looked back at her and heard her high loud laugh and was embarrassed that others would hear. Discerning that he meant to flee, she closed in on him with licking and sucking little kisses, and struck him down into her conical mound of brown ring-ivy.

That night she slept with one leg over him, but he lay open-eyed, scheming how to return to his own lines. There was a girl he sought to prey on — not this one who’d defeated him. He lay stifling, panting for her, and the one who’d got him, exulting in her dreams, dreamed she was coursing him again, making him groan between her perfect white buttocks. At last he fell asleep again, only to be awoken by her fingers reconnoitering him, crawling up his leg like crabs. He could see her cruel teeth shining in the starlight. Her smile of exposed belly heaved; her navel blinked. As gently as a mother slows the arc of a swing to pluck her child out, he lifted her leg in his hands, thinking to roll free, but she sprang on him at once, rubbing her crotch against him until his weak-willed penis sprang up strong. When he’d satisfied her again she fell back on the bed’s sweaty battlefield and began to breathe more evenly, her eyes closing, the octopus-tentacles retreating back inside her skull to hug themselves like a ball of dormant roots. Asleep, dead asleep, she straddled the wartorn sheet-ridges in that hot black night whose stars winked out one by one. Now the wily one she’d thought to keep slid away inch by inch, down to the foot of the bed where it was cool by her softly clenching toes. He rose and stood above her; she was his fallen enemy now, and he gloated. Stalking into her bathroom, he closed the door, turned on the light, raised the toilet lid. When he turned to wash off crusted love-gore, his mirror-face knew him, and for the first time he felt that he could trust himself like a holy image; he was friends with himself. Together they’d keep watch, strike, take the incarnadine plunder. They smiled at one another, and the double reached out a palm for him to touch, mirror-cold, glass-hard. Then he sidled out, dressed as silent as a breath, and left behind his grisly work. Unable to wake, paralyzed by the joy he’d given her, she lay still even when the back door opened and shut; only her eyeballs whirred uneasily beneath the sleep-sealed lids—

She woke weeping in that empty sweaty bed, already knowing she’d been routed, but her octopus held tight to patience regardless of dismay; it sent shock-troop fingers to caress her fibrulating heart until the frantic beats slowed; then, slithering between her ventricles with an invertebrate’s fluid beauty, it exposed and blotted her sequestered grief. In the bathroom, octopus-fingers wiped her tears and washed her face; ringing themselves with silver and gold, they dressed her in the perfumed garments of a sacred pledge. They found his five fingerprints on the mirror and tasted that spoor, but it was cold. Long tendrils flowered out of her in all directions to find the one she hunted. Eye-suckers, budding optic nerves, reached through the windowpanes and scanned dawn’s streets, greedy to see where he lurked. Octopus filaments bloomed through the telephone wires, and the steady yellow phone light showed that information was being transferred to her ear. By the time she’d made up her mouth and eyes (they’d be her battle-shield’s device), her pet, exhausted by emboldening her, had itself become nervous. Now it was her turn to take in trust those skinny octopus-arms that were swarming in her heart again (not stroking this time, but darkly flickering like a girl’s armpits up her short sleeves); so she damned the quarry aloud, swearing she’d find means to drown him in the dark blood of love. She combed her hair until it shone like the sun’s tiny triple gleams upon a sand-bound ant, patted powder on her cheeks and smiled into the mirror, not to commune, as he’d done, but to command herself; then, studying the loveliness of her throat, the sure wake of golden light on her forehead, her red-waxed lips, new soft sweater crackling with electricity, tight pants, she laughed aloud. She put on two earrings which would catch the sun like fishing-lures. Then she slung her purse over her shoulder and set out, far ahead of the sleeping platoons.

He was long away by then, in strange shaded places near the church, reaping other girls by the armload, sweeping them down on top of him to do his will. He netted them like birds, kissed them in a roar of lust that rolled their eyes up. They panted shining in his arms. By the time they were able to weapon themselves, he’d rushed off on other forays, and though they tracked him like wolf-dogs, hungry to gulp his blood back into their hollowed hearts, they’d become so crazed in their distress as to break ranks, rounding on each other to dispute the right to sniff his footprints, rending each other’s throats for panicked malice; meanwhile, he was tongue to tongue with some new victim, hypnotizing her to draw him into her house. He went in the front door, exited the back, came in the back door and went out the front, lunging, seeking only to spend himself. But the girl with the octopus mind, more prodigious in pride and lust than any battalion, sought him with rampant cunning. An effeminate boy in suit and tie sat on a shrub-bench with his knees spread like a frog, a cigarette between them. He turned his head in a series of alert little jerks. She bore him home for a little sport, soldiered him, digested him and spat him out — she’d get the one she wanted in the end. Wetting her lips replete, patting her hair, she went out again, and this time almost won him, but he saw her first, and wisely bolted; there was another girl he lusted to strip. Would it surprise you to learn that he caught that one and pierced her well, drinking up her cries of joy? When he’d robbed her of everything but her broken heart, he retreated to his own lines where his best friend slapped his shoulders laughing, bushwhacking east with him along the north rim of the Grand Canyon, descending gulleys between steep tree-islands, then climbing step by slipping step up the slopes of slipping pine needles, breasting sunny walls of poison oak, climbing lichened limestone stairs and squeezing between oaks and pines that smelled like bees’ nests where birds sang and flies twanged like rubber bands and wide white rainclouds watched the two friends from each hill. They could see the canyon blue and red and purple-banded and vast and striated and old, so old, and a cold breeze wrapped itself around a lightning-struck tree behind which salmon-colored shards of limestone lay, and behind them were the great ridges and spurs of the canyon, and the air came rushing upward and there was a sound of seashells. Here they threw themselves down side by side to compose new strategies of covert penetration for future wars, inflaming each other with more longings for girls with eyes of blue enamel, chewing over the memory-fat of other live-plucked girls; but by then the girl with the octopus mind had fished up the latest jilted one, the corpse stripped empty of its encarnadine prize; her she bribed with sumptuous sympathy to tell all; that was how she learned of his habit of kissing girls’ eyes. — Yes, he kissed mine, too, she said to herself; that was the one thing I didn’t make him do. — At once, casting her new friend back into the pit of grief, leaving her to wail and rot, she returned home behind her bulkheads where the octopus was free to show itself; here, in sight of the bed where she’d been defiled, she tinctured her eyes with various drops until they dazzled the day: beautiful craft, the twin irises blue with green rays as light and narrow as minnows, the pupils glittering like polished hematite! Next she painted with cool marine colors her eyelids which not so long ago had been red with weeping. At last she fluffed her lashes out like lethal spears, and their points caught light and glittered. Thus armed, thus horned like a male gazelle, she set out for the front where her enemy roved. She marauded down the sidewalk-lipped trenches of blackness, spying out the porches, decks and lawns that hid behind the breeze-blown trees, hunting the couples sipping slurpies, prowling past the fatsos who swallowed down another Big Gulp, searching everywhere, stalking him with coaxing bombshells wrist-flipped into his mailbox just as a gas grenade might be launched behind the foe’s lines; in the moon-ridden heat of her frenzied nights her fingers scuttered from page to page of the phone book; and so, unsurpassed in mobility, eye-elevated in striking power, she flushed him out like the judgment of Heaven. Instantaneously she closed on him, raking and slashing with those love-lashes of hers, hooking him deep with every lash-point until he hung gape-mouthed like a trout, impaled and bleeding with admiration for her eyes; but just when he seemed defeated he somehow wrenched himself away, and his best friend sprang into the breach to woo her, see if she’d let him sow his crop while the other boy stanched his wounds in safety behind the lines. Whirling him aside, she pursued her prey, ripping her gaze through walls and windows to ground him, but he knew full well what to do, shielding himself behind a sweetfaced fat girl who kept pulling her sweatshirt back down her glistening paunch. Soon enough he was sucking out of her all the bird-notes of mounting suspense. Just as some women in anger rip down handfuls of air, so the girl with the octopus mind lashed her furious blood with the wiry tentacles of crazed desire. Like some farseeing bird she found the fat girl stripped and vanquished, sobbing with desire for the one who’d loved her. Another new friend! Quickly, now, spread the snares of friendship! Artfully rubbing her back with tentacles that vibrated and veered, opening her up with tradecraft, she recruited the fool’s intelligence. So it all came gurgling out, in between sobs, how he’d kissed her belly, worshiping the soft bulk as if it were a god… That was the next weakness of his she learned about. When she’d finished listening shrewdly, milking her drop by drop, as if for affection’s sake, she whelmed the fat girl back down into the grave of sticky tears, leaving her to moan to her heart’s content. For those who regard solidarity in the wars of love will gain only ordinary prizes. Home she sped to her command post, there by that four-poster bed where she’d killed him once; if she carved out her future the way she meant to, he’d soon be tied there again. Behind the mirror where she kept her war-gear, she ran her glance down the ranks of unguents, selecting at last a bottle whose contents, pressed from the fruits of death, she thought to hang her next sortie on. Up with the sweater; expose the torso’s implacable turrets. Take them in hand, aim the nipples straight ahead, lock into place those gunbarrels of sizzling milk. Now for the lotion, worked in with a fingertip, round and round the aureoles that glistened like target rings; the hard nipples, ready to fire, bulged menacing and pink — an easy trick, once she had him, to make him charge her with milk to machine-gun him with while her belly swelled with new love… and she tied on her brightest bikini, knowing that multicolored breasts are far more dramatic than when the bathing suit comes off to reveal the same old lumps of gelatinous flesh like the fat girl’s belly: wait till she locked his mouth on those; the luna-moth green and yolk-yellow of her breast-cups would rush out at him like fast-moving troops! Lipsticking herself with no less care than those Greek athletes getting oiled before the wrestling bout, she set out mercilessly, and the door slammed behind her like thunder. This time she thought he’d not dodge her, no matter if he’d whizzed away in Broncos and Amigos with monster wheels, windows open, smog in, radios at maximum volume. From far away she intercepted his nocturnal emissions. Thinking he’d slipped away for good, he was browsing on girls like a buck deer grazing on the steep sunny slope, slowly lifting his legs, puckering his lips, leaning, stretching his neck most incautiously, while his best friend knelt in the high grass, with the sun brightening his antlers. She charged him very quickly, halting him with her eyes like a back-road poacher with his headlights, spearing him with the tips of her hot-colored nipples that dazed and wounded him right through her breast-cups, whistling into his heart to knock him down so that he convulsed and fouled himself with his own blood and the world went clammy, murmurous, but again his best friend roared and covered him with penile fire until he shook his head stupidly and got away from her one last time, the way you elude a breaking wave by swimming out past it, into the place where waves are only rolls of the sea’s fatty belly, lurching and quivering, lifting you effortlessly on ocean bellylaughs. But he was bleeding badly; everything dizzied him hot and smooth like her sun-girl’s breast.

There is a certain middle distance at which the island that one is approaching, not having grown larger for a long interval, continues not to grow larger; and yet somehow you can see that it is growing larger. This is how the girl with the octopus mind now felt. She did not rage and tremble; she knew that next time she’d have him. Marshalling her reserves — well-plucked eyebrows, perfect ankles, dimples and fingernails and flashing blitzkrieg shoulders — she streaked on, following his tracks.

But once again he was out of reach of her weapons, having been conquered by another, an innocent girl who won him carelessly, almost unknowingly, simply by appearing before him like beautiful death. While the platoons of other hungry girls scoured the streets lipsticked in their reconnaissance cars, turning corners with rolled-down windows to catch unwary boys with the aching lure of a licked lip, the innocent girl mauled him with a look, holding her right hand in her left, cradling her head in her soft wave of hair, gazing at him with steady brown eyes. His will pleaded to turn away, to fatten on less dangerous prey, but a single lethal toss of her hair strangled him into silence. He could not even ransom himself from her; his best friend could not pull him home; she’d infiltrated his machine-gun nests of coldblooded charm, and a raking salvo of light from her eyebrows shattered them into stutters. Continuously firing gorgeousness upon him from her flared nostrils, she sprawled him down without even a smile. He spun as he tumbled, and his neck snapped back; his mouth gaped in a silent shriek. Then she hacked his heart to pieces.

Thoughts of her visited him all night, thickening like the echoes of her goodbye shouted from the window — her second goodbye, which came after the one by the stairs, when he’d embraced her without kissing her anymore and began to go downstairs and the innocent girl whispered to her cat: Say goodbye to him… — down the long stairs he sank to the door which he shut behind him knowing that she was at the top of the stairs watching him; he closed the door and made it sure, went down the outer stairs to the gate and closed it behind him like an astronaut leaving the airlock forever; and he began to walk into the grim loneliness of that street where a hungry man leaned into darkness watching him approach; he knew before he even passed the man that the man would stalk him for blocks; it was then that she called goodbye to him from the window. Tomorrow morning she was going away. The goodness and desperate impatience of her were being formed into some alloy as yet unknown. — (She’d told him that it was all over.)

In front of his door the girl with the octopus mind was waiting. But she could do nothing to him. He was armored against her with the ultimate armor of obliviousness.

The girl with the octopus mind, beautiful, sat in her empty bedroom with the white white walls emblazoning her shadow of need and sadness, and with all the loneliness of nakedness she knew that she was so far away from the army of other girls now that no one could help her on this last battlefield where the vultures already waited to dip their beaks in her decaying heart, and the octopus (which was really her anguish) glared inside her skull so desperately that her mind burst into throbbing flames and it stretched its suckers just as a child stretches his arms out as he begins to weep; then the child throws back his head to let mouth and tongue gape to the heavens; now he’s prepared; in the same hopeless way, the octopus shot its tendrils out in all directions, locking them into rigid pain like a sea-creature dropped living into formaldehyde; the pale-eyed octopus was dying; the girl it was dying inside sat rocking herself and moaning and dialling to make his phone ring and ring, but nothing could drag him out of remembering one night when the innocent girl was in her pajamas.

Do you think it would be decent for me to go out like this? the innocent girl had said.

I think it would be decent for you to go out any way. You are so beautiful.

She laughed quickly. — Thank you, she said.

She never loved him. Unknowing and uncaring she whipped his heart as if it were a screaming horse. He went home aching. The phone rang, but he didn’t answer it.

After she’d flown clear, he sat overhauling his semi-obsolete love weapons, patching holes in his armor, stacking up cannister after cannister of glittering heartless love-bullets to bombard her with. Knowing he’d likely have time to fire only once, he brooded over what ammunition would be most likely to kill her heart instantly. His best friend shuddered to see him so; he thought to divert him with easier targets, unaware girls to strike and crush, but he remained alone, stricken and bleeding ceaselessly. Throwing up his hands, the best friend went out alone. That was his mistake. He wasn’t in his prime anymore. Laughing, he ploughed the enemy down, spearing and shooting all that he could get, but an adept girl finally slaughtered his heart. — We got the dogs so we wouldn’t have a kid, but we have two kids now, he said, kissing his wife’s face.

But the one who loved the innocent girl felt no more alone when his best friend was killed and stripped. He was already alone. So the girl with the octopus mind won him. She outraced him, then she outwaited him. She got him in the chest, and down he clanged and crashed. She danced over him as he lay there dead. Then she married him.

He never had to cook dinner for himself anymore. His wife did that, busy with her tentacles that were green like an Air King compressed air dispenser. His wife never ate anything that he cooked. If he washed the dishes his wife would go through every plate, until she found some microscopic spot; then she’d wash them all again. So he’d gotten out of the habit of doing the dishes, too. His wife was a professional woman, and when other professional women came over they’d be sure to make some pointed remark to him, such as: Boy, you sure are lucky to have a wife who does everything for you! I would never do all the cooking for my husband! He’d be ashamed if I did.

Had the octopus died after all? On their vacations her oiled knees remained first in firm alertness when she slept in her beach chair. Whenever he made what she considered a mistake, she found it out immediately and began screaming at him. No, the octopus was still there. It didn’t know how to be happy. It tried to bask inside her victorious skull, in exactly the same way that some girls sling their bodies back against locked arms, spread palms when they sun themselves; but then it quickly began to squirm again, greedy and anxious…

Sometimes she shivered with rage at the thought that she’d won a man who was worthless. She preferred his former best friend. (His former best friend had been working for many years as a medical technician when one day he started reading one of those inspirational books that remind you to live each day to the fullest, to remember that today is the first day of the rest of your life, and above all to be sure that you were doing exactly what you wanted to do. Reading this tract, he suddenly yelled aloud: I know what I want! I want to be a used car salesman! — So he did that, and became very happy. When nothing was going on, he’d just say they were jerking off, not really coming; a sale was an orgasm. Now for the encarnadine prize!) But the octopus-minded one knew with all her tentacles that her own husband was no good. Then she’d begin to set him tasks again. One day she decided that it was his job to vacuum. On Monday, he went down to the super’s to borrow the vacuum but the super said that it had been stolen. His wife said: Well then, we’ll have to get a cleaning lady, won’t we?

No, he said weakly, I can’t afford it.

You spend your money on pretty things, said she. You can spend your money on this.

No, no, he said.

Then you can borrow it from Bertha.

But I don’t feel comfortable with Bertha. I’ll vacuum but can you borrow it?

No.

Okay. Then I’ll do it.

On Tuesday Bertha wasn’t there. He called three times. On Wednesday it was the same. His wife was going to dinner at Bertha’s. He had spoken to Bertha on the phone and it was understood that he would pick up the vacuum. He went down when he was sure that dinner would be over and it had just started. Theodore was sitting at the head of the table, carving the turkey, and his wife was there and Bertha was just bringing in the brussels sprouts from the kitchen.

Oh, you have to stay! said Bertha.

I–I… he said, becoming tongue-tied with shame.

Sit down, beamed the octopus, glowering with pure hatred.

No, I just wanted to borrow the vacuum…

Can’t it wait until after dinner? snarled Theodore. I mean, we’re eating.

I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t mean to—

No, no, no, give him the vacuum, said Bertha anxiously.

Everyone stared at him over their ruined dinner. Bertha rushed into the bedroom and got the vacuum. Doing this she awakened the baby, who began to cry.

Oh, Theodore, said Bertha. There’s something wrong with the vacuum. Can you fix it?

Theodore leaped up in a rage, knocking over the ruined dinner…

She had begun to accord her career the attention which it deserved. She was an engineer for a nationwide company which manufactured super-cold smart refrigerators. If she distinguished herself, they’d give her a promotion and they could move back to the west coast. She had a number of competitors for the position, but she knifed them square in the belly; she slit their livers open; she made their guts see the light of day! Her octopus quivered and listened perpetually; it was impossible to surprise her. Those who tried staggered back gushing blood, and their fate was the same as that of the amateurs whom she herself surprised. She drove them all down to death. Catnapping from year to year, tossing restlessly in that murderous marriage bed, she seized the spoils and gathered grander weapons, until at last she won the triumph; he didn’t care. Now they were all set to move into their dream house.

They fought about where and when and how, and the next thing they fought about was the printer stand. He suddenly realized that she had moved it into the hall to be trashed. She’d gone somewhere when he noticed. He went outside, and there it was. He brought it back inside. It was his; he was using it and it would be good to have when they got to their dream house. It was ugly and lightweight and practically indestructible. As far as he was concerned it would be fine forever. No doubt she hated it for its looks. But they wouldn’t have any money for awhile. The dream house, as dream houses will, had cost more than expected, and once the closing costs were tacked on… If he allowed her to throw it out, he wouldn’t have any ugly chair when they got there. She’d be working, and wouldn’t be available. He wouldn’t have money; he’d just given her his life savings for the down payment on the dream house. So he thought he was entitled to the ugly chair. That was why he brought it back in. When she returned from wherever she’d been, he saw the hatred and anger leap into her eyes.

What’s this? she said.

I brought it back.

Where are you going to put it?

I don’t know. Where do you suggest? he said wearily. (All evening he’d been following her suggestions.)

Out, she said flatly. We’re not taking it.

Look, he said. I don’t have to justify everything I take. You went and put it out without consulting me. It’s mine, and—

No, it’s not yours. We found it together, in the garbage. I tell you, we’re not taking it! You just want to get the moving costs up. You don’t care. It’s not your money anymore. The costs keep going up with every stupid thing you try to save—

I’m not getting rid of it, he said then. (He’d hardly ever noticed it before.)

Now she started screeching at him. He bore it as patiently as he could, for as long as he could. His stomach began to ache. Then he told her to stop. That pleased her. Now that she’d gotten a rise out of him, she could abuse him in earnest.

He was sitting at his desk. She was standing by the table, yelling.

Please stop now, he said.

You sonofabitch, she said. You fucking sonofabitch.

She went on like that for a while.

I’m asking you for the last time to stop, he said.

Now a crisis was approaching. That was what she longed for. She refined the cruelty of her insults as she increased their volume. He did everything he could not to hear, but he heard just the same.

I’m almost at the breaking point, he said. Please stop, or I’ll push you out the door.

You leave, you fucking sonofabitch.

He could actually push her out, but that would only make a public scene, and anyway he didn’t want to be brutal. He just wanted her to stop. There was no use talking to her and she wasn’t going to shut up. He couldn’t bear it. He could leave himself, but he was very tired and had nowhere to go. Now that his money was gone, he couldn’t stay in a hotel. She was going on and on, and he snapped. On his desk, ready to hand, was a textbook of hers. He looked at it. He was very angry now, and could barely control himself.

If you don’t stop now I’m going to throw something, he said.

Go ahead. Throw the ugly chair. Then you’ll break it and I’ll throw it out.

Will you shut up?

Listen to that. The man who never does anything tells me to shut up.

He picked up her book knowing now that he was going to throw it, terrified lest he throw it directly at her and hurt her. He couldn’t stop himself from throwing it anymore. He aimed at a chair near her and launched it and saw it hit the chair with a grand thud. The binding ripped. She swooped down on it and cried in a heartrending voice: You ruined it!

She set it down on the table so gently. (She never touched him like that.) Then she ran to his bookshelf and snatched one of his rarest books.

Well, he thought to himself, now she’s going to throw that. I might as well resign myself.

She ran up behind him glaring and raised it over his head. He wondered if she would bring it down on his face or whether she’d shatter the computer screen. He stared away stonily.

She slammed it harmlessly down on the carpet.

How’d you like it if I broke your book in two? she wept.

She went into the bedroom and he heard her weeping — a weird, not unpleasant musical wail of ooh-oohs that almost made him smile. It went on for half an hour. He knew that if he didn’t go in there she’d add to her hoard of resentments, citing coldhearted abandonment (that had happened before), but if he did go in he’d become the lightning rod of more abuse. So he sat staring at the blank screen of his computer. There was no place to go.

After a while she came out, crying more loudly now, to get Scotch tape to repair the book. She came near him, wailing inconsolably for her poor dear book. No doubt she wanted to make sure that he was paying attention. So he braced himself and went in.

Can I comfort you or make it up to you in any way at all? he said.

Get out, you sonofabitch! she screamed. Fucking sonofabitch!

All right, he said.

She followed him out, screaming.

Please leave me alone, he said. I got out, didn’t I?

She went back in and slammed the door and cried for a while. Then she came out and rummaged in his tool box a foot behind him, loudly. He didn’t look. She took something. Then he heard a loud thud. She’d thrown the ugly chair down on the floor and was trying to smash it with his hammer. It was comical. He had to dig his fingernails into his palms to keep from laughing. Finally something broke. It was the shaft of the hammer. She cried out and flung the pieces into the garbage and left the chair lying by the door, an upside down monument to battle. He felt affection for the sturdy thing. It was his heart’s proxy, just as her book had been; she could not destroy it.

In the morning he found that she’d set it outside again. He brought it in. But she got her way in the end, of course—

They started from Massachusetts where fog-wisps grew like grass on the surfaces of the ponds because it had just rained and he asked her: Are you a happy creature? and she said: Yep. — Then talk like a happy creature, he commanded. — Beep beep beep beep beep, she said. They drove through the hot afternoon rain and crossed into New York where it wasn’t yet hazy; descending into a bowl of dark green and light green trees, they swallowed a blue mountain in their rear view mirror. The mountains there were infinitely thin, each progressively more sky-colored and transparent, until the farthest one was only the sky. As they neared them to eat them up, the mountains swelled, hardened and darkened to viridian. And then they were eaten and fell behind. They crossed the Hudson River, which was blue-grey and wide, and pierced the sumac walls to eat more mountains. Double-decker porches, towns and green tree-hills steadily lowered before them like horses’ heads. Almost Pennsylvania. His wife ignored him like a sun-reddened girl smoothing her hair with a close-eyed smile. She’d walled herself into one of those temporary worlds used by people on beach towels, every sunbather alone. The tree-miles stretched leaves overhead, clutching at him and her on the narrow turns. Now at this deer crossing they began to get away from bleached Hudson River colors, into mists and browns, denser forests, leaves slicked down over more leaves like a teenager’s hair, and the glimpse he got of a river through the trees was strange to him like the misty cornfields, none of which she saw; she was driving. Wide-porched general stores rolled over for them but she never stopped. She drove over squashed roadkills sticky and grey; she devoured the plastic cow on the roof of the steakhouse and shat it out through the rear view mirror and then they were in Pennsylvania. On the BBQ billboard, the man’s face was covered with sauce. He thought: Now if I blew her head off, if I made her face explode into a thousand bits and blotches and spray blood all over the ceiling and still be screaming after it was apart; if I beat her and raped her and cut her; if I burned her, tortured her, smashed her, crushed her, ground her into the floor, chopped her up, smeared her into nothing like one of these roadkills; if I disarticulated every dead bone and broke it over my knee like a dry stick, would my face be happily covered with her gore like that? — Grand hazy schoolyards, wild tiger lilies, multitopped mulleins like chandeliers. — Music, she said to him without looking. He put on a Japanese chromium dioxide tape for her, and it was the soundtrack of his life’s movie: calm, instrumental, intellectual muzak. Hopeless to ask her to stop at the Snake Farm — yes, they whizzed right by that; for him only a glimpse through the open door where the cages were stacked, cratelike affairs of used barnboard, very dusty… They hurtled past quick round-edged tree-gaps cut by power poles, and devoured the sudden sunny flashings of meadow and ridge. It was after a rain at dusk, and the sky was a magnetic blue; the yellow headlights of approaching cars sparkled like tears, and the road wound back and forth like the final drawn-out convulsions of some pompous symphony, the trees now becoming jungle-dark blotches of steam and crime…

They stopped at a hotel, and she switched on the TV immediately and lay smiling at it in the huge cold bed so that she wouldn’t have to talk to him. The next morning they enjoyed together the innocent delight of speeding past the solemn personages in station wagons who chew chicken legs while they drive. His wife’s head was nodding and smiling to the music of the new cassette; her index finger tapped itself on the steering wheel; she sang la- la-la-la-la. As far as he could see, cars rolled along in parallel, as if pulled by the same string.

Green fields and red barns sped across his eyes like sleep as his octopus-minded wife drove them west past roadkills more rare, flattened and hairless than before. The grass along the median strip was browner and drier. He saw twin white horses by a stagnant pond. Just as a moth squashed on the windshield is at first a splash of gorgeous yellow-green, but gradually darkens as it coagulates until it is little different from the yellow painted line at the road-shoulder’s edge, so his anxieties baked hard hour by hour on the bloodcaked grill of his heart. Fearing he’d already met the worst, he tried to embattle himself more proudly, as if he could turn the tables again the way he had that first night, when she’d had him and slept, and then he’d stood above her, to go back among the other girls. But no, she was his day’s eternal nightmare. Speeding sunpoints rushed from leaf-spike to leaf-spike of the corn like falling dominoes. In Indiana, where the irrigation lines were as rickety as drunken airplane struts, they devoured rolls of yellow grass, racks of snubby drooping trees. They ate up brown hay cylinders and rubbery green mud together. The radar detector never beeped, not even at seventy-five miles an hour. He wondered what had been in those cages at the Snake Farm. He peered up through the bays of cumulus clouds, finding birds and bugs. Purple cloud-udders hung over them. Someday her breasts would turn ancient and hang down like that, purple, wrinkled and veined; they’d resemble his balls — proof of the homology of the sexes. Would he still be her slave then? Maybe he’d get lucky, and she’d have a car accident. They were now approaching Gary, rusted and trestled, a tower with fire coming out like an orange windsock; they ate smoke and bridges and more fire, leaving soot and emptiness behind them. The smells of oil and gas and sulphur throbbed inside his skull, and she turned the air conditioning up a notch, not that that would do any good, but what was the use of saying anything to her; she was as impervious as these white round oil tanks that led them into forests of transformers and power poles; in a split second they slurped up a polluted pond, lipsticked with algae bloom; then they were on the Illinois side, choking down huge rusty tanks as big as apartment houses, condensers, beaked downpointed bird-skeleton machines, funnels, gallowses a dozen storeys high, poles bearing resistors like antlers; they snacked on things like a tin man’s arms coming out of buildings; he ate the ones on the right; she ate the ones on the left; the things were spotted with corrosion like birdshit. Now came the brick tenements, incinerator chimneys, and like a dream the thin blue skyscrapers of Chicago rose so far away.

The plan of his octopus-eyed wife was to sleep that night at the condo of one of her colleagues who designed smart microwaves whose black glass jaws slammed shut on refrigerator foods shrunken hard like cold turds, then spat them out transformed into hot and lethal nourishment; she and the octopus-minded one had once charged boys together, splitting their heads open with needle-sharp eyelashes, ripping the boys’ struggling tongues from their mouths to suck on. He thought the colleague had liked him once. Maybe he’d lock her in flirtation’s skirmishes, stinging her heart just a little with temptation, winning a drop or two of blood, not the full encarnadine prize. So he smiled, the Amtrak rolling beside them in a fury like a caterpillar on its tiptoes, and his wife didn’t notice him smiling; he knew she wouldn’t; and they munched unspeaking on idle smokestacks still laddered and ringed for nothing; his wife yawned and ate a Metro train that came smashing down a hot wind among the weedy shrubs; she ate the shrubs, too, for garnish; in that hot breathless breeze he ate the smell of pavement and diesel-smoke; a child spread his hands in the diesel van ahead; the tail-light winked like the eye of an insect pimp. With their bulging bleary eyes he and his wife ate the freeway miles littered with glass, half-melted scraps of tires, hubcaps; a faint fishy breeze condensed on a passing car and he ate that for dessert… The traffic stalled. On the opposite side, across the barrier, a redbrown-skinned woman in a sleeveless blue dress raised her arms above her head to stretch, and he was almost close enough to smell the musk in her armpits — no reason why he’d never see her again, but he wouldn’t; he’d been stripped of his gear years ago. He gobbled up a fenced-off little beach on the right, whose trash cans everywhere cast interlocking shadows between which people lay “sunning” themselves and trying to cough; while his wife drank up the unearthly lake-shimmer beyond, silent and metal-eyed; yes, she drank that pale pale blue’s green. — Park and lock. — The colleague met them at the door to her engraving-hung condominium (ceramic leaves, a view of dark trees and bricks, brass fittings on the windows) whose floors creaked threateningly beneath his tread, making everywhere he stood a lost island. Her piano was barnacled with multitudes of figurines so fragile that too potent a breath would sweep them to ashes. Her clocks, terrier-faced cushions, chandeliers and bone-white knicknack excresences prohibited him from touching anything. The colleague embraced his wife. She looked at him as if he smelled. She’d arranged a little reunion for his wife, an intimate little party, a nothing fancy under the chandeliers. Here came the designer of smart showerheads who kissed his wife, perhaps a hair too fondly; here came the two ladies who were installing smart microphones for the Justice Department; then the famous man they’d all learned from, the gallant old one who’d married young; he’d made his money in smart syringes and smart toxics, but now in his semi-official retirement he dabbled in smart rosebushes; his young wife was the only other one there who wasn’t an engineer, so after an hour of their shop talk he leaned across the table and said to her smiling: So, how have you learned to cope with these conversations? — Oh, she replied, so far (she’d been shifting her head from side to side as if out of boredom, but she kept doing it while she was answering him and he saw that she was doing it to follow what they said, nodding like a graceful snake) so far, she said, I try to listen and learn. If you don’t mind, I’m trying to listen right now.

The next day they found themselves driving into the stem of a gigantic cumulus mushroom whose restful purple underbelly loomed closer and closer, blue sky vanishing on either side. Ahead fell streams of violet rain. His wife licked her lips and devoured the first drop that struck the windshield, the second; now the car was shaken by rain; the hood danced with it. Two smart eyelashes swept back and forth across the car’s rectangular eye. Raindrops boiled on the pavement ahead and on the hood. Rain washed squashed bugs away, and they came out clean and new.

Each day the knot in his stomach tightened. They hadn’t been speaking for the last hours, after she’d screamed at him you asshole and then ordered him to read out the directions, and he said: Not until after you apologize and she said: Not until you apologize for being an asshole.

The cornfields and cumuli of Iowa showed him purity unequaled (he didn’t know what his wife thought), and he said to himself: There ought to be a saying: as pure as a cloud in Iowa. His stomach ached. They passed a waterslide amusement park in the middle of the cornfields—

That night they were to stop at the house of one of her colleagues, who’d just moved to Omaha, and he dreaded it because if there was not to be a scene before the colleagues there must be false cheeriness; fortunately he barely knew them; the hypocrisy would not be as grave. He dreaded it eating the clouds that boiled up in towers and pointing fingers; he dreaded it rolling across the wide brown rivers of low fat trees. There were so many things she was required to apologize for now that he supposed he’d better buy a little black book to keep track of them all in. But then she’d get a black book, too, and she’d write down lies about him. Then he’d have to find her black book and erase the lies. They’d end up hiding their black books from each other. Someday soon he must start taking revenge by the breasts. A goose and three goslings tried to cross the freeway. His wife swerved to avoid them. They danced back into the other lane, and then a car came round the bend and squashed them. At twilight, approaching Council Bluffs, the road began to sing, a steady breathless aaaaah whose cadence wavered with the angle of the road; the shoulder glowed white in the sun; trees and prairie grass vanished in the sun’s hurtful orange glare, which leaped from tree to tree, always the same spot of ferocious blindness. When they pulled up before the just completed house, which lurked in a gated labyrinth of just completed houses already Kentucky bluegrassed into permanence, when they rolled into the three-car garage, the colleague came out smiling and went over to the driver’s side where his wife was unstrapping herself from seatbelt coils. He got out before she did and went around to the driver’s side and said to the engineer: Well, Ernest, how are you? — Linda! cried the engineer, beaming as the driver’s door swung open. — What a lovely house! the octopus wife said. (He hadn’t heard her voice for eight hours.) — How are you, Ernest? he said again. — The engineer didn’t even look at him. He wondered if there was something wrong with his face. He wondered if his face was the same as it had been the night that his wife and the engineer had graduated together from the refrigerator institute and his wife had been screaming at him asshole and fucking asshole and bastard just before the graduation and then it was time to put on his suit and tie in her honor. He had considered not going, but this was an occasion that would never come back for her; he had no right to do that unless he was going to leave her and he couldn’t do that because she’d won him and spread her hands over him night after night, widening her fingers like muskets aimed from behind a wagon-train. He got dressed. She never told him anything about her work, so he didn’t even know who was graduating and who the other people were, and his feet hurt in the dress shoes because the reception was being held in a concrete warehouse filled with the latest smart refrigerators that talked back to you when you asked for a glass of milk, so finally he went into the buffet room where it was just him and the piano player; misery stabbed him and twisted, but his chest strained hard against the point of it, strained by habit so that no harm was done. Misery shot casts at him but could not hurt him because he knew that it was there; he hardened himself, expressionless. He sat down at at a table weighted with romantic candle flames, awaiting the hour for dinner, and when it came, when the others gathered there (no dodging them now), his wife sat down beside him. His callus-armored heart split open in a great cracked clang of pain, and the soul-blood spurted; so he rendered up to her the incarnadine prize. He would not change his face. They stared at him and talked to him as if he were an imbecile and finally ignored him. She was the class president. After dinner it was time for her speech, which he also dreaded like a shower of scorpions because last year’s class president had thanked his wife in his speech, but this wife of his would not thank him. Of course he hoped she would. As she drew closer and closer to that part of her speech, he began to believe that her colleagues were eye-raping him just as courtroom spectators will watch the accused when the foreman of the jury rises to give his verdict. Now she was at that part, and it gave him bliss beyond words to know that she wasn’t going to thank him; that way he could go on hating her. When her speech was over, and she hadn’t thanked him, the leaden-headed clawshaft of humiliation hammered him almost backward, impaled him to his seat. Looking at his plate, he saw that he hadn’t eaten any dinner. When the engineer’s wife said goodbye to everyone, she kissed everyone else’s cheek, but she only shook his hand and told him loudly that she was leaving, as if to a senile grandparent. It was to her magnificent new house (which had been lived in for less than a week) that he and his octopus wife had now driven. The house was so huge that all the couple’s possessions barely made a dent in it. Fierce sunlight zigzagged down the carpeted stairs; carpeted rooms of oceanic vastness bore nothing on their down but a child’s ball, were sunned by no lamps yet; genesis had not finished; there were so many rooms! The garage had arch-shaped windows. Moldings and central vacuum units and doors leading to great caves confused him. Outside there were other lawns and other new houses; nothing else but a smoldering humid sky. — How are you, Ernest? he said a third time, at the next lull. The engineer never looked at him. He began another conversation with the octopus-minded woman, who was raptly stroking the engineer’s new car. — Glad to hear it, Ernest, he said softly.

Inside, he and his octopus wife admired the house in separate but equal ways, praising, lying, rhapsodizing, propagandizing like performers skilled at song; talking never to each other. The engineer and his wife were so caught up in the narcissism of owning their new house that they didn’t notice, believing that their house truly was the best in the world because they lived in it; naturally the world (comprising in this case their first two house-guests) would so praise the house, holding it in such reverence that they wouldn’t talk to one another… The engineer took them to examine the back lawn. Our hero told the engineer to weather-seal the deck posts. The engineer could hear him now; he was talking about the engineer’s house. But there remained a fretful expression on the engineer’s face when he said anything to him; when he took two steps backward, leaving the engineer to babble with the two wives in those carpeted caverns, then that expression eased, and the engineer no longer tapped his foot…

As soon as he could, therefore, he said that he had to take a shower. He took the longest shower he had ever taken in his life. Then he told them he had to go to bed. With the door shut, his ground chosen, he robbed the bed of one of its four pillows and lay down on the carpet, his body half in the closet to be as far away from her as he could; for a moment it seemed he owned himself again. His wife stayed up until midnight. He lay awake wondering if she were telling them of all the wrongs he’d done her.

The next morning, rolling away through the hot pig-scented winds, they began getting ready to pretend that the quarrel hadn’t happened. They were not absolutely unspeaking and unhearing like walled-up statues anymore, although it is true that they didn’t make unnecessary talk, either. They answered one another politely but succinctly. He never looked into her face, although he occasionally glimpsed her shoulder move when her right hand moved upon the steering wheel. They were going to Denver. She had another colleague there. This was a woman who was developing the prototypes for smart lamps. With a little luck, while his wife and the colleague ignored him he could steal some of the colleague’s dirty underwear and sniff it—

Devouring the boneparched sandbars on the Platte, they drove on to where the grass was lighter, the corn smaller, the highway faded almost white. There were sandhills in the fields now. At Cornfield Creek with its occasional stains, each from a single tree, his wife ate a young boy, tanned and naked to the waist, who was walking along with a fishing pole over his shoulder. Near the site of Buffalo Bill’s grave the first dry ridges started twisting out of the flat ground, the dirt all the different colors like the fireworks that the twin blonde girls were selling at their stand. A man bicycled in a cowboy hat. Swallowing heat-crisped grass and dustyblonde fields of hay bales, they rode the ricket-fenced roadside whose ranches rambled painted and unpainted, hoarding dust-manured corals.

Suddenly his wife patted his arm, gazing at him with a loving smile.

When they got to Colorado, the sun, waiting just behind a thunderhead, sent misty chlorine rays down a grey and orange fogbank; beneath this cloud-spider, below the smell of spruces, beehives and water, below the chittering of aspen leaves like TV static or fish scales in waves, Denver stretched hot and flat and smoggy. They went to to the colleague’s house. He remembered her as a girl drinking pink magaritas with his wife when she was not yet his wife. Now her prettiness had tightened, like his wife’s, and when he moved to embrace her he saw a grimace split her face from top to bottom, and he saw that the line it followed was a habitual line; she was a professional now. At least when he’d hugged her he’d made her breasts go squish…

He’d tucked his shirt in, and at once his wife came to pull it out again. He shook his head, moved away and tucked it in again. She followed him and pulled it out. He pushed her away so hard she almost fell.

Down the twirly mountain highway, past Leadville, the gorges were corrugated with dark green trees. Valleys, bowls, and overlooks bored him. Bare mud-peaks were snow-striped like skunks’ tails. Twin-stacked diesel-snorters raced down green horse meadows. They had a fight whose anguish diffused through him just as altitude sickness begins from between the eyes and then spreads inside the skull, but by then, descending the sandy cutaways puffed and dotted with desert shrubs, they’d lost all the altitude they ever would, she flicking him an eye-corner’s worth of her contempt, just as she might flick a dead fly off a piece of paper; thus his octopus-minded wife, her heart plated with chitin. They came down into blue-salted canyonland that was goosebumped like a chilly girl’s legs; and cocoa-colored sandcliffs, topped with old cracking rocks, nosed down at them and their fate. Sharp-tongued mountains growled around, snapping at the sky like famished dogs. The dinosaur buttes pierced the sky with their sharp and dusty backbones. She said something, but her words buzzed by him like flies by a shady pool. Not far from the aluminum-sided “café” where they sold pliers and soda and “authentic” Navajo souvenirs (the trash can was too hot to touch), they came into Utah, his wife driving faster and faster, whirling down the highway like a sudden twister of tan dust. He choked down lopsided outcroppings lumped, bumped and swollen into dolmens beneath the clouds, all of it reddening into postcard quivers. Lumps and bumps, that’s all it was, utterly impervious, all gypsum and concrete and halfbaked pyramids and hundred-foot dogshit fossils, Disneyland ramparts and piss-yellow plaster casts of tits and cups, mountains of dried feta cheese now mold-grown with sagebrush; and clouds as smoothly twisted as the country they hung so mushily over. The day’s last sunbeams were eyelashing down. They crossed a country’s dozen of horizons all in a row, purple, red, brown and blue. Zealous at the wheel, she stuffed sandstone chessmen and Nazi rubble into her mouth, and then they came down into the green ranches of evening.

From Denver they drove to Vegas; from Vegas to the coast; the following day found them parked for good, all ready to begin happily ever after in their dream house.

Staring out the corner window in the evening as white cars and blue cars drove very slowly toward him, then vanished beneath the shuddering maple tree, which was wide like Mau-Mau skin sandals, our unnamed hero remembered the innocent girl; it was the recollection of her innocence (which I said was not really innocence) that led him into his interest in retarded girls, which began one Pennsylvania night when he’d become so isolated from his hostess, lost in the forest of candles and crystal, surrounded by people with whom conversation had been exhausted like an old mine, so everyone stared in non-intersecting gazes at the hostess, who, smiling and rigid, nodded big-eyed as the guest of honor (not our lover) slipped a hand across the back of her chair; she parted her lips in wonder at his every word; but, being a good hostess, discovered the silence across the table before it had even fallen; so that while the guest of honor talked on and she nodded like an amiable puppet she was already scheming how to save him so far away across the table — and did she? Well, not until after dinner; there was no human way he could be spared that ordeal. He’d known that before he got there to be seated beneath the painting of Isis with her slender buttocks always in profile on a narrow ledge, raising her hands, groping at the Pharaoh. It had been that way ever since the time he’d spied on his octopus-minded ex-wife, who’d been waiting for him. She was sitting alone on a bench in the night, on the corner of the bench, a marble bench. She was a little hunched, with her arms linked over her purse, and he could see from behind how her blonde hair darkened steadily toward the center of her head until it almost achieved the blackness of her dress, which, being velvety, not shiny, and abetted by the stark white hem, far eclipsed the blackness of her high heels as she sat there on that bench, never moving; until a couple sat down beside her and then she moved a little farther away. After half an hour she started looking at her watch. His hatred grew. He longed for her to leave. But she was waiting for him. She waited for more than an hour. When she finally stood up, he began to cry very quietly in the bushes behind her. Now she’d be going to do the other thing, he supposed. He could see her. She had her face between the other woman’s legs, working at her with soulful sucking sounds, as greedy as a girl probling the long plastic spoon into her cup of slushy-ice on a hot lunch hour, sitting sidesaddle on a bench, hunched over the slushy to help its coolness reach her sweaty throat; in her joy she no longer sees the army of boys who drive their division of golden plastic tanks almost to her toes; when she’s scraped every little crystal of blue-green ice from the cup, she bends down further, claps it to her face, works her tongue as far down the cups insides as she can reach, pig-nosed with that cup between her eyes. That was how it must be with his wife and the other woman. This had never happened and never would, but he needed to believe in it; that was as good a method as any to invent a way she didn’t love him. So he fled as soon as he could, like a gecko fleeing a moving shadow, and the hostess was sorry that she’d asked him to her dinner party because nobody could draw him out, and the women who’d been compelled to sit beside him at that vast and miserable table were more than happy to talk to other men, and he was twitching, blinking and sweating as he got into his car. If you have ever seen a couple at a bar, she smiling with lovely white teeth and with every calligraphic eyebrow-hair, her lashes sparkling with fun, her pupils gleaming, her nostrils stretched wide, while beside her he leans droopy-eyed, his smile a purely sarcastic knife or leaf, and behind him somebody in the darkness chugs another can of beer, then you will know more or less how it had been. It was almost dark. He drove to the outskirts of that town, where American flags hung limper than used condoms, only the brass eagles nailed above doorways hanging firm; and he passed the taprooms and the rusty markets that sold Hershey’s ice cream, and his headlights massaged the portico of the Weed Hotel, turning left onto the two-lane highway whose bus just ahead got bigger and smaller. Finally the bus turned off, and then it was a van just ahead, inside which children were fighting, silhouetted in the dusty window. — Past the fence of three rusty cables at the roadside marked here and there with plastic forks and squashed possums, the grass ran richly down to river-ponds almost as warm as blood in which the teenagers bathed beneath the powerlines. He pulled over by the picnic tables, got out, locked up because he knew the ways of the Pest. Scuttling down through prickers, bending back the soft lavender sneeze-flowers, he slid into his favorite spot, a culvert whose uphill end he’d sealed off with shovelfuls of dirt; there he kept his foam rubber mattress, the moss-stuffed mailbag for his pillow, and when he lay there watching the skinnydipping girls through his binoculars, he could always be counted on to ejaculate like some stupendously stupid night-lit fountain streaming and spilling and guttering through its troughs. How innocent they seemed, too! They were innocent because they didn’t know that he was watching them; their breasts swelled with the same candor he’d seen in sneak-peek photographs. (Yes! His name was Dan Smooth.)

He knew not, this veteran captain, what plan to urge upon himself except the old plans (no fault of his, that old plans were derailed); he’d fall back into the encarnadine trench, taken by persuasion’s assaults! His octopus-minded ex-wife had paid him back for yesterday; he’d pay her back with tomorrow: that is how wars go. Limping down between rocky uncertainties as a cat limps, he wandered through a graduation at Berkley which he’d come to just to see the girls; his resolution had not at all affected the routine of the Economics Department whose young faces were meaty and confident beneath the mortarboards, parents brushing the dust and soot from the shoulders of their dark gowns, Japanese dads focusing their zooms while every mom looked on with full-judged concern. Ignoring sons, he scanned the daughters with salvo upon salvo of loving glances… no use — he’d grown too old! The sun shone with impersonal malice on the cement, none of the young graduates suspecting the dark wretchedness of adult events that would mutilate and eventually destroy them. The profile-line of mortarboard, cheek and gown was very pleasant, but now the graduates doffed their ceremonial vestments and lost their splendor, becoming just like everyone else. — Well, now he’d do what seemed best to him. No luck with young things, incarnadine prizes unripe? Well, he’d light the battle in another way, with the flame-white hair of elder dames! Surely they wouldn’t keep their treasures to themselves… Fishing deathlessly, he soon had something on his hook… That very night he was besieging the middle-aged lady with kisses, undermining her vigilant lips, his tongue the battering ram that assaulted the gates of her modestly clenched teeth which held firm until, sending a clever shot behind her lines, he exploded and dissolved her earlobe in a single lick of slobbery lust; now the gates opened, and ferociously the tongue surged in, pillaging her mouth’s stronghold of all its well-wrought treasures of moans and sighs; dragging her down on top of him to complete the work, he launched grazing passes between her still-clothed thighs. — I really think you’d better… she began; and he kissed down her murmurs until they were both outbreathed… — Stop, she said. — Just one more kiss, he said (expertly conducting his propaganda war). He rolled her on her side, clasping her beyond possibility of escape, and began to suck the spit out of her. His hand rubbing and rubbing until the juice worked out through her pants, he said: You really want me to go? — This is mad, she said. Yes, yes… — Yes what? — Yes I want you to go. — I will, he grinned, any time now. — His other hand had twisted down the front of her blouse to loot her intermediate prizes. The hand between her legs was rasping harder now; he felt the first small spasm of her defeat; and she began clinging to him harder and he said: Should I go or not? and she said: Is this some kind of game? and he lowered his face very earnestly down upon her face and said: Mm hm as he directed more whizzing salvoes across her body to breach her other swirls and brattices, making her breath come thick and hot and fast as she straddled him writhing like a soldier whose belly’s been blown open by a lucky shot, and he said: So, should I go? and she giggled and said: You devil… — The next morning he was with a charming Mexican woman, pressing a Hershey’s chocolate kiss into her hand, saying: Don’t say I never kissed you. — You never kissed me, she said, pouncing on him, and he was kissing her swimmingly and they went out for coffee and eggs and bacon and ham and sausage and biscuits and gravy, cramming it in until at last she leaned back sighing happily and said: I like you because you are so intelligent and analytical! and he put his hand on her sweet arm. — But as soon as he left her to match himself against the lovely young girl champions whom he once could have run down like a hunting dog, he shrank and said: I’m not what I was. — That evening he wandered past the trio playing Smetana in the old Jesuit chapel at Loyola University, the stained glass windows gleaming, everyone sweating, and someone told him (he knew not whether it was true) that the Jesuits hated for the piano to be played. But the trio played until it was dusk, and the yellow windows glowed. The sky was awash with cerulean blue; the evening smelled like grass. He wandered past girls as lovely as the disconnected squares of snowquilt blueness seen between a field of bushy cloud, but he cringed from them; he was afraid now. — My ex-wife’s ruined me! he thought. — He wandered down the dark and dirty streets owned by princesses of darkness. A whore, a whore, and looking at her he knew right away that he’d forget her face even though it was beautiful; she blocked his way on the sidewalk and said hi and he said hi and she wanted to know what she wanted to know, so he must break the bad news; but she took his hand and squeezed it and he squeezed it back for a minute before he walked on, not looking at her, and he’d already forgotten her face, but strangely enough he remembered her hand; it’s a cliché to say that black people are chocolate-skinned, but that hand of hers was the lovely reddish-brown of fresh cocoa shavings—

During the divorce settlement he came across an unsent letter from his ex-wife to his mother which ran: Sometimes I think that we hide from ourselves how deeply we feel about people. For instance, my husband. I always thought him a little dull and condescending, but at the same time he did me favors and so I thought I liked him until last night when I dreamed that he was chasing me around the house, stalking me with a gun, meaning to kill me, and waking up I realized that I had always feared and hated him.

So while his powers shrank he fought on, long cut off from his own lines because the others had been defeated long ago, riven into marriage beds by the octopus-eyed girls, or (no better and no worse) they’d won the encarnadine prizes they’d striven for and retired from the lists, licking them over and over in their life’s last caves like dragons greeding over their hoard, licking them out of dull habit, with nothing left to taste but their own stale breath. Oh, no doubt there were a few still left, fighting on ragtag and wild, but in the wars of merciless love, as I’ve just said, to lose is to lose, to win is to lose, and (sad but true) to keep the war hot proves no less to lose, for love-strife is a death where love-life passes us by. In the old days he never would have spied; he liked to think his ex-wife had degraded him down to that, but she was no more than a horrible fire he’d passed through, scorching and scarring him, to be sure; after all, heat was what he’d asked for. Too late? Too late for what? Whatever he might have done or not done, it was getting too late. His penis, speckled and frolicksome like an otter, would soon play no more. He’d perfume it only with sacrilege.

There was a lady his own age whom he thought stalked him as he stalked her, but when he closed on her, bellied up to her slit, she said: I–I’m embarrassed to say this…

Go ahead.

I–I’d love to let you kiss me, but I can’t be like other women…

… and he saw that another game was ended; she wouldn’t have had him in her sleep.

He sat at home reading the Neutron Trilogy but he couldn’t concentrate.

He thought of a long and lovely face sipping at a straw. Her eyes were so big they filled up half her face. Her pupils were ripe dark fruits.

The golden retriever bitch lifted her head and panted innocently, open-mouthed, her pink tongue as thin as a slice of fancy ham, and then she lay back down under his chair to let her honeyhaired sides quake while she basked and gnawed on the last stand of ivy which ran along the bottom of the house and which she had previously neglected to destroy. This task done, she looked at him again, perhaps content, perhaps hoping and waiting for something, so he stroked the length of her skull forward and backward with two fingers, until she raised her nose and licked him. She lay down again, and he heard a rustling as she worried lovingly at the dismembered vines of his dream house.

The phone rang. He got up and opened the summer door whose screen the dog had almost finished chewing off and then the cool shuttered peace of his lovely house beat down upon him like a congregation of bats as he went back into the narrowest hallway where the phone was still ringing.

He said hello.

I just wanted to tell you, said the middle-aged lady, that I’ve found somebody else…

Where were the prizes then?

… They could be called perpetual children. That was the usual way to think of them, two-day piglets puny and shortfurred like monkeys. Some had almost reached adolescence, which hung over them big and shiny like an autumn sunset in northern Canada, crawling brightly, feebly along the ridgetops so that it must be obvious to anyone that darkness will be in sway within half an hour and yet at midnight the sun is still there; others were stammering two- and three-year-olds just on the threshold of complex speech. (Still others, of course, could not talk at all.) In many cases they were sick children. They received medication every day; they had to be guarded against the extra few minutes in the sun or the second chocolate bar that might bring on a seizure. Like children, they lived imprudent and unaware, and could not keep themselves from danger. When they were cruel to one another, their cruelty sometimes partook of craft. But original sin was in everyone’s children. So he kept saying to himself, but his authority over them could not be of as simple and absolute a character as the authority of an adult over a child. Because he hoped that some of them would eventually be able to take care of themselves, he allowed himself to be persuaded by them that this time their choice should be the deciding one, and today they could stay out of the swimming pool, even though he wished that they would go in again. — Well, he was equivocating; he would do the same with a child. (He had not yet seduced his niece.) The real reason that the relationship was problematic was that some of them had passed puberty and were aware of it. A few of them were attracted to him sexually, and sometimes he, despite himself, was attracted to them. Sexual desire, suppressed though of course it had to be (because the Chief Medical Officer was watching from the steel desk, his eyes dull, as if he’d been taking the drugs he prescribed), was the great enemy of the well-intentioned hierarchy. As flesh wanting flesh, he and they were equals; they could satisfy each other, and some were quite beautiful. Their hands squeezed his when he held them; their hair blew in the wind; the women touched their breasts and smiled at him… and then between those half-parted lips the tongue protruded again; the hand pulled away and began to scratch.

The Chief Medical Officer blew his nose, which was as red and glossy as the bloom-phallus of Indonesian sun-ginger. Wrist-angle, neck-angle, the weird glasses-gleam and boniness of life! — I believe in you, Dan! the Chief Medical Officer said. — Then the Chief Medical Officer gave him his charges, slack bodies to animate.

As the final recreational Thursday drew toward him like a grey station wagon cleaving the hot afternoon, he tore himself off his wailing dreams and began to arm, buying road maps on the sly, calling in a reservation on a travel bungalow across the state line. He was ready to give birth to his own brooding thoughts. Gliding over the slippery backs of days, he snatched handcuffs and tranquilizers, bought the right women’s clothes, honed his smile-flashes sharp to do love’s butchery again. Fortune’s child like us all, he hummed with power like an electric drill only because Fortune had plugged him in. — No, the tense feeling of travelling alone into darkness is no worse than usual, he said to himself. It’s just that I’ve gotten out of practice. — So they got in the sky-blue bus, counselors and inmates; they were going to the fair.

Win, win, win, win! the barkers shouted. Come on over! — The retarded ones cringed or laughed or shrieked for glee, gaping at the stuffed animals of every putrescent color which hung for prizes in love’s abbatoir; they were inside the fence now, tickets paid (a favor they’d never notice), hands stamped. — Group leaders! Group leaders! Pay attention, group leaders! We’ll meet here at five-thirty sharp! Have a wonderful, wonderful time—

One of his charges was absent with a seizure — all the better for him. The other speechless ones could be disposed of with blinding pieces of change — here, for instance, where the phony canoes slammed down the river slide like a horrible torture. Strap them in; no malingering now… Wipe the drool from their chins one last time, give them their meds a little early (a triple dose); slip the carnie man two twenties, presidential side up: Just keep them going round. I’ll be back in an hour… — As for the crowd, they were too busy pretending not to stare at the retards to notice him…

Fingers tight around her wrist. She turned to him full-face, ready to be led; he had the prize. Already the machine was starting up; over its roaring and clattering he could hear the speechless boys begin to bawl in fright. Well, they could bawl all they liked; not one would spill the beans—

Slipping his arm around her waist, he took her past the huddle of grey-clad security guards who lounged chuckling at the crackle of their own walkie-talkies, drinking Cokes, smoothing their greasy hair, glaring amiable at one another through ultradark sunglasses; no, they’d never remember him. He led her through the end of the afternoon swollen with light like some monster California orange, taking her where the heat and glare were fiercest, stalking through unknowing crowds, dodging her silently past girls throwing darts at balloons that resembled multicolored pustules (the girls hoped to win ugly pictures). She grunted softly and dug her feet in, twisting away from him to look back at the silver-studded ferris wheel whirring, gleaming fiercely in the sun. Then he saw that she was listening and sniffing for the scents of the other group leaders’ cargo of differently ableds; some were up there whirling and gaping; just beside it, a number were strapped screaming to the giant pendulum on the pirate ride, raining down puke… — Perhaps it was that that she sniffed and smelled. Did she remember their odors enough to miss them? — A barker was grasping air, wide-eyed, trying to grab him in. — Hey now let’s go now let’s play let’s PLAY! Try it! — She turned her deadly gaze upon the barker, who said: Hey I’m sorry. — He took her away, the barker forlorn and sheepish, and he bought her a butterfinger-flavored slushy which she messed all down her dress and sticky hands, stretching her arms out to him like the bewildered parents stumbling down the children’s rotating tunnel. He went and got electrocuted to win her a giant teddy bear which she went awwwwrr over and rubbed it up and down against her slushy-stained breasts while the yokels gawked, and then she retched, just a little yellow-brown tail sliding out of her mouth, and he wiped her on the bear and she started licking it back up, then she allowed the bear to fall to the cement puke-matted in the hot sun with flies already shooting down like bombers and her cheeks were blue and green where the bear’s dye had come off. They were getting very far ahead of her lines now; they were going so far into his country that she’d never be coming back. The other inmates were long lost, the pirate ride out of sight; at the place where you throw baseballs at beer bottles he found a water fountain and cleaned her face up a little; she slurped up the water and he let her drink until she was satisfied. Then he put her on a segment of a giant green caterpillar, riding beside her with his hand between her knees, and an old lady said to him: You’re disgusting, taking advantage of that retard like that, and she said: Worrrwww wor-rrww. The ride ended full circle and he led her off, stalking deeper and deeper into the fair. Two women were hitting each other with giant inflatable crayons. A man in a white barbeque cap scratched his stubble crosswise and watched her. He drowned her in pools of sunlight, leading her into unknown valleys where the barkers shouted: There he is! — She was hugging her horse now on the merry-go-round, cawing and almost falling off, so he grabbed from his companion steed, saving her as they whirled past SWIRL FRIES ten times a second; her mouth was open. She looked away, writhing her fingers…

Hundreds of ribs and chickens burned on a giant glassed-in grill. Guys in baseball caps stood squirting them with hoses. She stumbled bowlegged behind him, finger-chained by him, her face gaping and grimacing, her tongue out. He bought her a catfish on a stick. The lights were like horrid bathroom fixtures. She stopped dead to stare through glass at the hulking girls in rainbow outfits, turning corndogs in the roaring grease… They saw her and started digging each other in the ribs and pointing, mouthing at her like fishes through the glass; he almost expected her lips to move silently back, but only a thick translucent thread of drool spun out… Hands and tongues behind glass, the green and yellow depths of her lemonade cup, the bulging pale pink nipples of the prize cow hanging straight down from the hairy, veined, and distended bag — all these and more, Virginia, swamped her marshy senses like stamping horses, pounding down the ooze inside her skull and galloping on while her darling forgetfulness oozed clear and fresh back up through the mud, washing it into its old featurelessness — or so he thought until they came to the pen of the giant sow. Giant, pink, and rosy-breasted, she offered many women’s teats ranging along her in a double row, shaved and pink like a tender fat lady; and a big-eared piglet broke away from his littermates nuzzled head to toe; he scuttled down the side of his mother, who twitched her cup-nose lightyears away from her own belly; he came to the rearmost teat and she ground him viciously down beneath her hind leg so that he squealed; but the rest of the farrow, more desperate than deterred, crowded suddenly down the whole long row of teats, grunting and swarming and stepping on each other, screeching like crows, passionately sucking, but at nothing, for she wouldn’t let her milk out; then and only then the retarded girl said: Urrrrwwwh! and the great sow hunched her butt up, raised one abraded ear, turned her weary head, grunted: Urrrrwwwh!, and let go, the dimples in her side rolling like waves, the young ones lining up straight and perpendicular now to nurse amidst that happy tremendous pink quaking—

He escorted her on, past a stripe-aproned girl waving phosophorescent whips; people’s backs went ahead, walking toward the orange-glowing tents. They were hours late now. The security guards would be looking for them. A Mexican, weary and sweating, turned barbequed turkey-legs on a grill more shiny than the night, the meat glowing like fiesta condoms. He hurried her down the long bright sidewalk eyelashed with pole-lamp shadows, and there was a bench between the dance pavilion and the eggroll-on-a-stick booth where the moon teased her through the trees. He pulled her down on the dark grass white-wizened like an old dog’s coat. Her face was a little blurred by the neon lights. Million-colored reflections of whirling blinked in the stagnant river beside them, lights going down escalators as his fingers strapped her cheeks bone-tight, pulling her easy lips open so that he could thrust his tongue; seizing her hair like reins, he rode her face the way he wanted to; the crossed thighs of the woman on the next bench reflected a winking light… She beat her elbows frantically like a wounded bird. All around them, crowds sleepwalked through the lighted world as if they’d discovered the secret of happiness. The lights of the monorail rose between the trees where insects rattled. Wiping their mutual slobber from her face, he led her past another merry-go-round, now more lurid, the horses’ mouths wide open in silent screams, the studded oval mirrors like blank mouths, the caterpillar statue turning dimly in the moonlight. The moon was over the porker pavilion, the smell of pigshit inside. The bleachers were crowded. He took her down in front to watch the races. A man with a hoarse beery voice was shouting: Go, red pig! Go, red pig! Fuck you in front, blonde bitch! Get down, get down! I said fuck you down in front, blonde bitch! Go, red pig! — and a man in a cowboy hat was easing his wheelchaired wife away from her reproachfully and the drunk came storming down because she was blocking his view. The drunk knocked her down with one fast punch that bloodied her nose and she started flailing silently at the floor, huge-eyed, cracking her head again and again on the concrete while he, the brilliant one, drew out his car keys, locked his fist around them wih the longest one protruding between two fingers; then he stabbed the big drunk square in the eye once, twice, till something popped out. The drunk crashed down, curling tight around himself like a worm. Kicking him in the teeth, he leaped back, lifted her, ran with her until they’d hidden behind the couples with slurpies watching the goat being milked into the coffee can. Then they fled together, hand in hand, past luminous wheels and gears and light bulb blooms and girls screaming in the night like witches being burned; with his dull-eyed bleeding prize he retreated across that battlefield of light. Yellow skeletons of light sucked children up and down as they screamed. Ferris wheels hummed like the reddish filaments of pulsating eyeballs—

Inside she was as purple-pink and delicate as a puppy’s tongue.

And she kept purring and cawing as he spread her thighs apart; she opened her mouth in surprise and grunted when he stuck it in; and she was so beautiful, even more so than the innocent girl, so beautiful that he could see that he was about to come almost right away; when he came it was as perfect as when he used to water the shrubs at the dream house, and from the hose came a rainbow, the gold band the widest, then the blue; when he turned the hose away the rainbow endured for half a second or so and then vanished; it seemed that the last drops falling out of empty air were gold or blue—

The girl lay in the back seat sleeping with her hands over her ears, flushed, glistening with sweat, her bare arms almost white in the sunlight, her hair bleached to the color of old bones. He whizzed her down the freeway between golden grass hills once virgin, now spiked down with wireboned power towers whose cables shattered the sky into meaningless polygons; he was taking her past where the gold and green hills turned yellow and blue. Surer now than all the spurting worms, he could unmask his memories of the long drive in lost years with his octopus-minded ex-wife; how he’d ridden silent and stunned in her hands’ grip, knowing nothing other than that he was being borne away; now he was in charge, rushing an equally silenced prize home to his new lair, his treasure-house of all good things. The hacienda-roofed gas stations and motels rejoiced his heart; he knew they’d trip up any pursuers, while away their eyes to slow them while he continued to speed his loved one to the place where even the sky’s blueness bleached out. There was a spider on the back of his neck which became fingers, and then she was crooning and playing with his hair. He felt her hot breath on the back of his neck. She kept trying to make him pay attention to her. He wanted to pull over and suck the tongue right out of her mouth, but there wasn’t time yet, not till he’d hidden beyond these almond orchards with the real estate developers’ obscene signs already dooming them as they stood; once the trees had been cut down the police would be able to see farther, so he shot her through yellow tunnel light the color of lemon drops while she giggled and played with his hair and started gently smacking the top of his head making bird-noises in rythmn with the slaps; he pressed the gas pedal down a little more to explode them through the new buffer towns walled into compartments by rival developers, each tract with its own replicated roof; that was all that could be seen from outside, the wall rendering these neighborhoods into spurious Babylons of monotony — divine sites for a seraglio; even the inmates wouldn’t know where they were; as for the authorities, they’d but be baffled like thieves in the “Arabian Nights,” eye-wandering that skyline of roofs along the endless road, locking wills with the palm trees that peeked over the wall… She insinuated herself forward between the seats so that he couldn’t see behind him and she tried to take his hand off the steering wheel to play with; when he wouldn’t give it to her she started poking him and giggling. With alert spider-lashed eyes he peered into his rear-view mirror to make sure that no one was stalking him; then he twisted into a rest area, stopped, undid the seat belt, got into the back seat and started kissing her as he’d wanted to do, dragging her down while she flapped her elbows in pleasure; he was wondering how to take her to the bathroom but just then she wet herself, so why bother. He put his hand up her sodden dress and she liked it; then he thought he heard a siren and leaped away from her, wiping his hands; he strapped her to the seat with a lap belt and handcuffed her wrists so that she couldn’t poke him anymore; then it was back to the golden hills crammed with sparkling cars, the yellow fever-hills of dying grass and barbed wire and planes, the hills eaten up by lethal new towns; rising out of his body as he hurtled down the four-lane highway past blondes and Komfort trailers, he achieved the Yum-Yum billboards and American flags bulldozing themselves bigger and bigger until they lost sight of their own emptiness, shouting out long low malls and bungalows to use up the flatness of needless space through which he drove like a pilot down a runway, between earth and air, dusted dry over his sweat; the car stank of her urine even when he rolled down the windows to let in the smells of the long flat green fields while she croaked in terror and distress, not understanding why she was restrained, why she couldn’t have him; she was screaming and he had to roll the windows back up so that no one else would hear, and he heard the creaking of her struggling to get free, so he floored it to bring them faster and more safely past the blinding light of those yellow-green fields; at last he spied out the sought-for skyscrapers on their mutual horizon; he told her that they were almost there and she didn’t understand, crying and slobbering and biting her tongue and lips in a bloody frenzy of sadness as as roared past river-straddling cement bunkers, wolfpacks of houses and bridges and cranes, a dead car on the shoulder, hood up like a penis, sawmills and two-storey office cubes and more billboards and then long grey hot buildings to stupefy the skyscrapers, storage tanks, toxic factories half-camouflaged by palm trees; and, slowing down block by block, he brought her into the “nice” neighborhood where there were fewer gas stations and more houses and trees—

Once inside, he gave her two tranquilizers and rocked her to sleep. Then he locked her into the bedroom. He sprayed the back seat with stain remover and drove it to the carwash. Then he got some Kool-Aid and TV dinners. When he came back, he heard her sobbing and banging her head against the wall. He called her name and she sniffled into silence. Then he went into the kitchen to make her some Kool-Aid. He unlocked the bedroom door. As soon as she saw him come in, she started smiling and grunting and clutching at the folds of her pink dress—

He took her into the back yard to play and the lady in the next bungalow came out and said: Who’s that poor girl?

My sister’s child.

As quickly as he decently could then, he pulled her back inside. He was one with a dog he’d once had that would always snap at cheese-wax thrown out of the kitchen window; getting what it craved into its jaws, the dog would immediately bound into the farthest corner of the yard for safe enjoyment, nothing there but dog and grass and cheese-wax, which left the dog in charge, by default…

Studying the road atlas while she went kaaaaw kaaaaw at the TV, he wondered whether he’d be forced to unblur his ex-wife from memory on this drive, remembering the drive to their dream house when time and again she’d carved out her portion from his heart’s crimson flesh. But his retarded girl, now, she was different; she couldn’t strip him dead and bare; as for her, she came to him already stripped, like a live oyster on the half-shell; he didn’t need to assault her; why, he’d build her a castle, one of those ridiculous Disneyland castles with ice cream cone towers and a gaudy drawbridge of sighs… He’d give her the whole teat: the illuminated fountains, eternal torches, the rush of blinking lights over sad-canted palm-trees… Raising the blinds an inch, he saw that sunset had come to the power poles. No neighbor lady in sight. Watered down creamy clouds wobbled in “presenting” position, like drunken lambs dipped in orange dye. He played with her just as the shoeshine boy rubs the gleaming loafers with a red cloth.

When it was completely dark he drugged her nice and drowsy with a taste of gin and half a sleeping pill. Then he handcuffed her wrists together and led her out to the car.

The road was a weird wingy segment of paleness as he drove her home to her perdition, only the double yellow line in the center real, not the diamond-shaped hazard signs emblazoned with squiggly arrows to warn him of curves and pale trees. She picked at her seatbelt and cawed and tried to flap her elbows. — That’s right, he said, never looking away from the road. That’s right. — Gravel-cuts seized his gaze like something sticky, and the road was only darkness vanishing in a notch of monotony. The car bumped over moonscarred asphalt the color of faded dreams, the darkness hot and unclean—

They were very happy for weeks, until his money was gone — for he was not yet Daniel Clement Smooth, expert witness. She needed to eat. He himself wasn’t so hungry yet. Of course he would have gotten a job if he could, but leaving her alone made her shriek in grief and fear. So he had to work with her, as they said, not against her.

Well, there was one thing he could think of that she could do.

The man peeled ten sticky five-dollar bills apart, fanned them, and laid them down on the counter. — I like to talk first, he said. You mind if I talk first?

You’d better talk to me then, said Smooth. You see, you won’t get far talking to her.

The man leaned forward earnestly, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and let air out of his mouth with a farting noise. — Well, he said, I was raised never to be ashamed of who I am or what I do, and so I don’t mind telling you that I’m a slapper. That’s my job, and I’m proud of it. I work for Mr. Brady. Have you heard of him? Don’t say you haven’t, or I’ll slap you. I’m hired to slap the babes around when they get out of line — only with an open hand, of course, never hard enough to really hurt ’em or knock ’em down. A good slap is a slap you can see, though, a nice red handprint all up and down the cheek. They don’t take it personally when I do it, because they know it’s just my job. A lot of ’em like me. Sometimes, if I feel there’s a little trust going between us, I kid around with ’em a little bit. I slap ’em on the ass, which coming from me is a compliment. Anyway, that’s all I got to say. Where’s the retard bitch?

He watched the man go in, and the door closed. He heard the man lock the door on the inside. There was a long silence, and then suddenly the sound of a slap. She screamed. Suddenly the screeches were muffled; the slapper must have stuffed her nightie or something into her mouth; then he heard the slaps as crisp and even as metronomic ticktock, heard her grunt trying to scream, heard the bed start creaking.

One of my better ones, the slapper said, coming out. A nice red handprint like a flower.

The men went in and used her until their penises bowed like ducks’ necks. They left little blotches of snow in her golden grass. A boy whose cheeks were burned purple in some industrial accident kept twisting around to look at the bedroom door when he went home. The entrepeneur said to himself: Everyone is defective; to live is to be imperfect. Didn’t I once go kissing with a Mexican girl even though her legs were as hairy as tarantulas? — In these calculations he emulated the sixteenth-century Hochelagans, who were very greedy of wampum, which they used in all their ceremonies. To get it they would kill a man and slit deep gashes in his body, which they then lowered into the river for ten to twelve hours. Upon hauling up the corpse, they could be confident that certain shellfish would have crawled inside these numb white cuts. From their exoskeletons the wampum was made. — He did not particularly enjoy the gashes which the clients were now making in his sweetheart’s soul, but at least she got to eat, lots of canned ravioli and gushy bland Noodle-Oh’s… After a while he had money in the bank; then a taxidermist bought her outright, paid so well he couldn’t refuse; oho, he was getting his own back now in love’s unending war!

The next one was a subnormal Vietnamese girl with a flat golden face and wide black eyes. How he wanted to kiss her and swallow gobs of her heavenly spit! But, in keeping with a more gradualist approach, he presented her with a smooth whiplike twig of sweet birch to chew ten times so as to extract the rootbeer essence (and he counted each slow chew, his eyes never abandoning her eyes, so that she kept shrugging and smiling), and presently she disgorged the green mass of chewed fibers into her hand, and oozed it into his hand, and he popped it into his mouth, chewing and chewing, testing the birch taste overlain by her thick hot saliva, which his tongue prised from the fibers — he did not care about her germs. Her parents had sold her for five hundred dollars. In the end he had to let her go. Too intelligent — and, besides, her ischiocavernosi muscles, which in men allow erection and contract in women to shrink the clitoris, failed to perform as guaranteed. The slapper took her off his hands.

Mr. Brady, inspired by his slapper’s purchases, set out to grasp the money-gods’ knees. (His dreams told him where to go. Sometimes he saw sluggish wormy things behind his closed eyes.) Just as Paris is the city of pampered, rat-faced, self-indulgent little lapdogs whose shampooed beards reach down to the cobblestones, so Los Angeles is (at least in its parochially western way) the city of big money — oh, money with strings attached, mind you; money on elastic cords, money on chains, but investors are like that. Landing in that spread out place of greedy dreams, he always thought (as he never did when driving) of the Beatles singing: There’s a FOG up-on El-AY- ay-ay… because of the disembodied descent, and this time there really was a fog which they never broke through; when he inhaled the air with its customary flavor of burned tires he could feel it stretching hottish-coolish whitish tendrils down his throat and into his lungs; that was how it had been with Smooth’s octopus-minded wife, who’d sodomized every orifice of his soul until he gagged. The fog never really lifted, not on the way to the hotel, certainly not inside the hotel itself with its foggy-dim walls faintly marbled like cunt-hairs on flypaper; Brady threw himself down into the pastel-shrouded bed just to feel something, and sank into nothing silently. Striding across the ankle-deep carpeting, he rolled back the noiseless glass door and went out to stare at pool, palms, fountain, and beach, the soft hues of sand and sky and sea all averaging out to that of the carpet…

He put on his tuxedo, and became at once some some high-shouldered tropical bird with a long and narrow tail.

In the conference suite he found the immortals, the great ones who gazed down upon the rest — representatives of an entire Klavern: the Exalted Cyclops and all twelve Terrors. They sat at the table in their leisure suits, waiting to learn why he’d disturbed their repose. Too rich and high even to be generals in love’s great war, they’d sidelined themselves, devouring the smoke of deathless zeroes; that was their ambrosia, for only mortals may enjoy the incarnadine prize. (In Paris they owned the lapdogs; they were the necktied men beneath the awnings of the brasseries, gazing out at the ambulations of the public of which they were no longer a part.) He delved into their minds to see where their first inclinations lay, but, thunder-browed and flatulent, they sat in their splendor, equally prepared to accept or deny. He explained to them how some kisses suck spit, just as alcohol sucks ink from clogged pens. He spoke to them of what needed to be done, were he to bring his plan to glory. He strove to feed them his craving of sundown times when retarded girls would be ready like goats muzzled so that kids could play (he’d seen them at the fair, trying to rub their muzzles off against the bars of their cages; failing, they became very still and silent).

Next he gave them a multimedia teaser. He flashed image after image of retarded girls drooling with their legs spread, the projector cycling in and out of brightness like a seal’s dark nostrils winking open and shut. One of the gods, incognito in blue sunglasses and a red tie, cleared his throat and worked a calculator, murmuring: Ten percent rooms for conventions, ten for the high rollers, forty percent for tourists on travel packages and forty for individual reservations… Actually if we take the kids — we’ll call ’em “Ringmasters” here — ages three to sixteen… actually a good idea… Then he snapped his fingers and the forensic team were invited in.

The forensicists fed biscuits to a police puppy, watched the whole carousel twice more, and exclaimed to one another:

And the head formation is quite uncharacteristic. It could be Mayan, late Mayan.

Refer it to the Kloncilium…

And then this famous — I don’t think it’s Olmec at all — Henry Manes makes a good point…

Oh, come on, Fred; don’t get hung up on some jade knee-clutcher in Oaxaca…

Knee-clutcher? Well, I grant you it’s jade, but a cache of jade, absolutely classic jade. A lot of the Costan Rican jades are classic Maya.

And the chief forensicist sighed to himself:… Those multi-tiered altars! Altars, oh, my balls! Always studded with monstrous faces; usually too big to chip out; you gotta leave ’em — well, sometimes, it’s true, a guy might find jeweled eyeballs to prise out, or a figurine that could conceivably come loose with a crowbar’s help…

The gods sat yawning, frowning and tittering among themselves. They knew what the clients would be giving up: that special happiness when a girl can sit looking at you nodding very very fast, looking you in the eye, smoothing her skirt over and over where it bridges her succulent thighs. The retarded girls would certainly not do that. But Brady pressed his case with color photographs. Directly addressing the Imperial Wizard (an action not undertaken lightly), he spoke of exotic cretins whose vaginas were as dark and sandy as crocodile-mummies. He mentioned his idea for a certain foil-covered room with small portholes. He didn’t hesitate to describe to them a girl he’d once met in Napoli, a girl with hair the hue of a haystack and greenish-blue eyes who sat staring out the train window with interlaced fingers resting on her purse, her long legs crossed, her green wool jacket buttoned up to her throat, and the hair seemed what most attached her head to her shoulders. He whispered with a wink: What if we cut her hair off?

He knew very well what he was doing. He was like the black boys in low V-shaped boats who sit at water level in the Nile, paddling with their arms like doggish spiders, singing American songs to tourists, then asking for money. He’d sung his song. Now he invited them to sing theirs. They nudged one another and smiled.

Alabama, where I’m from, is always short of jobs, a god said. We’ve been short of jobs forever. This would have been all women, because they’re more dextrous with their fingers. I had this crazy idea that the people in the plant should own the plant. Well, I was thirty years ahead of my time.

California is the Whoredog State, another god replied. We could increase the carrying capacity by ten percent just by bringing in this business.

There’s a Christian businessman down in Cash Flow, Arkansas, who has a very powerful Christian TV station, a god said. This fellow back there, he’s run I don’t know how many of our tapes.

The Queen of the Whores lied to the American people, a god was muttering. The bankers love her.

If the U.S. was not preserved, then Communism would conquer Planet Earth, a god said.

The other gods discussed their own experiences. They called in their associates and Kleagles. Then they swore to their guest to grant him the victory he asked for (in exchange for certain future offerings mutually acceptable); they said it would be done.

The next one was a hydrocephalic girl who stared with little lizard eyes, her forehead bulging like a watermelon; Brady’s scientists caressed it gently to see if it was squishy. Her saliva was light, refreshing, foamy, very faintly nutty like a bottle of Ozujsko Pivo Special (Zagrebacska Pivova). After her, Brady collected two low-eared girls, then a bullet-headed microcephalic with lovely chestnut hair who clenched her teeth and sometimes bit. The slapper kept her in line. Then he acquired a blonde girl with a doll’s face: dull blue eyes and heavy mongoloid lids which must have been weighted like a doll’s, enhanced by the pale cheeks, the slack lips that sucked and drooled; on that same trip he snapped up a girl with Turner’s syndrome (webbed neck, sexual infantilism), and then a bald girl whose head was shaped like a light bulb—

Brady sat on the floors of echoing hardwood rooms that smelled of lemon-wax and laughed because they were his from chandelier to windowed door to lattice-work. Then his voice rang out in commands. The workmen assembled before him, good soldiers when money’s muster’s called. Receiving their orders, they ranged out in their smooth-geared trucks (Ah like to have a good caw undah mah ass, ya know what Ah mean?), scouring the lumberyards and wide-walled warehouses. When the lumberyards were looted, great mounds of bed-timber swelled at the curbside drops, higher than ever the Greeks raised for Patroclus’s pyre. Then they set about the work. At their lord’s command they laid down dark carpets to eat sounds and stains. With speedy rollers they painted the walls pink and yellow and blue — girl-child’s colors, cheerful, artless. Next they swung in the bed-gear on their shoulders, bolting double mattress-decks to sturdy keels, riveting everything down shipshape, studding the joists with rows of molybdenum hex-nuts in all order so that no plank would fail the rocking sailors, hammering down railings and see-through canopies, masting them with headboards, rigging them out with full waterproof sheets until those multistoried sailing ships were ready to be launched upon the seas of pleasure. In all the ceilings of that house they planted cameras to hang down watching wide-angled with a spider’s eyes. Now with powerful shaggy arms they screwed down marble toilets whose inner lids were blazoned with hearts; they heaved marble sinks and golden-glassed showers tight against the walls; cunningly they fitted the tiled nooks with silvered mirrors, slipping them flush like second skins. But all these things, necessary though they might be, would not gladden caged girls’ hearts. So now they hauled in the fabulous toy-chests, the doll-coffers replete with rubbery passive girls. They brought stuffed bears and tigers for the whores to hug, ten-foot fuzzy crocodiles for them to drool over in the rubber-sheeted beds, plastic panels with Buzzy-Scary games, building blocks, wind-up rutabagas, miniature houses with hinged roofs to peer through like gods, ruby-eyed flasher guns, rattattat pistols, modeling clay that was safe to eat, golden trucks and fishes to set their hearts in flame!

The doors locked only from the outside, because it would be ruinous to offer retarded girls the keeping of keys.

Brady put the slapper on salary. It became one of his recreations to watch that tall, easygoing fellow standing in the corner in ducky and tails, smiling and squeezing a rubber ball, or ever so delicately touching the flats of his hands together.

He informed the backers in L.A. that he’d even come in under budget, and they upwardly adjusted his benefit package in the most laudable possible way. They sent out feelers. They printed up stock certificates in Fraktur type. Everything was peachy. Maybe they’d go public in two years.

At last they brought them in from their cages, pretty girls, sweet girls, girls who filled the rooms with the scent of hot milk…

The golden-clad croupiers were patting the red tables in a dozen motions, each arm fanning out from an almost stationary body so that these employees resembled octopi. Their customers waited unsmiling for cards and chips to be presented to them, and I remember that Jack Williamson science fiction story called “With Folded Hands,” about an overly leisured future in which human beings are not allowed to do anything that might be dangerous or sad or bad for them; attended by robots all the way to the cemetery, they sit and await the next course in a banquet of sanitized irrelevancies, like the inmates of an old folks’ home. That nightmare story brooded with me for years, and here it was — worse, in a way, because in Williamson’s story the robots were well-meaning and gave people only the very best, whereas here they gave you the least they could get away with to hide the hollowness.

The slapper drowsed and drank ice water from tall thin glasses. Brady’s agents fanned out across the hot wide streets, putting up flyers for Feminine Circus in blistering parking lots and the ivied shade beneath freeway overpasses, making discreet calls at the pay phones between the wigwag roofs of fast food factories, wending cannily among the long low chiropractor’s office style architecture that bulged with air conditioners. When their friends asked them what they did for a living now, the agents replied: I’m in limbo; I’m with recruiters! I ask for a decent wage, and the guys want something for ten K or less! Well, it’s a soft market right now. You have to do a little of everything. I spent the last six or eight years of my life doing one thing. — The agents learned the ways of sunglare on dusty windshields and the windows of phone booths, so bright as to bring tears to their eyes. It was straight comission. A few among them, the good ones, grew into cool offices where only their sluggish fingers had to move like snails on hot lawns after a morning’s rain; they got results. Yes, Vagina, another dinner with the publicity people in purple Feminine Circus windbreakers… (There’s one fellow in this town who’s not a believer, an agent reported. He takes down my fliers. So I don’t acknowledge him. To me he doesn’t exist. The Bible says, if there’s a nonbeliever among you, put ‘em away. But I don’t go out of my way to be mean to him, either.)

The media relations spokesman for the Feminine Circus supply office gave interviews and explicated everything most helpfully to the American people: A pimp commits an illegal act, he’s kicked out immediately. This is a professional procuring organization. And, remember, all we procure are ONES AND ZEROES. Those girls are not real. They’re a miracle of modern technology, is what they are — gigabytes and trilobites just to digitize their smiles! And since they’re not real, nobody’s getting exploited, and there’s no disease to worry about.

Can you tell me why you want to repeal the federal income tax? asked the interviewer.

That is the goal. A whole basis for the collection of income to the government would have to be arranged. One way would be to have virtual prostitutes raise the money.

What’s your position on illegal prostitution?

Illegal, immoral, unhealthy, unsafe! Don’t do it, America! Come to Feminine Circus and indulge your fantasies in a safe, healthy and tasteful manner.

(Tasty is right! laughed vulgar Brady.)

There were a few picketers, it’s true, but the Associate Vice President of Marketing, Mr. Marlowe W. Slapper, explained: I do know that the circles they move in are definitely of an anti-sexual nature.

So you don’t believe that there’s any substance to these protesters’ claims?

Protesters as a class will sit there and lie, said the Associate Vice President of Marketing. It’s hard to debate someone who lies. If you want to really look at this, you take some objective fact of theirs and check it. For instance, what about this red herring they raise regarding coercion, of retarded girls being forced to perform fellatio? Me, I never met a whore who didn’t enjoy giving head. And, like I says, they’re not real anyways.

Mr. Slapper, don’t you feel that the name “Feminine Circus” is a bit unfair to women? asked a journalist. Shouldn’t the name encourage women to come and play also? I mean, right now, isn’t Feminine Circus mainly for men?

We’re in the final phases of a pilot program to introduce a special division for female customers, Mr. Slapper explained. For health and safety reasons we’ve decided to keep areas separate, as indeed we’re required to do under federal law. You wouldn’t want coed bathrooms, now, would you? No coed orgasms, either, because that would be prostitution. The way we have it planned, the men will go and do their thing among the bits and bytes, and the women will do a similar thing in their own area. Of course free daycare and a shuttle service will be provided.

(Leaning back in his chair, Mr. Rapp narrowed his eyes and grimaced, studying John as if he were the most important entity in the world. He nudged John and said: You remember what Engels used to say? Do quote Engels, son. It sounds so good when you say it.

(John smiled and said: For savagery — group marriage; for barbarism — pairing marriage; for civilization — monogamy, supplemented by adultery and prostitution.)

The Senior Vice President of Sales raised his wineglass and quipped: I have one of the easier jobs on the property. My job is to fill seven thousand beds a day. Double beds.

Every week there was a glowing article about Feminine Circus in the entertainment section.

Now the famous men rose to the occasion, gathering in the foyers to meet the ladies belly-to-belly, nose-to-anus, tongue-to-armpit — whatever their own honor cried for. The senator was there, jovially uptilting an Alsatian beer. The junked-out salesman was there. Last night he’d wanted a hooker, and he’d gotten a hooker. She took him into the hotel room and the pimp said: you’re fucking my wife! — The salesman pulled a knife. The pimp pulled a knife, too, and held it to his throat for about five hours. Now the salesman wanted a nice slow fat retard girl to slap around a little, before he stuck it into her mouth. That would put him right with the world again. After all, she wasn’t real anyhow. He was a good man; he always paid cash. — The successful dentist was there, laughing and shouting: If she finds out…! while the mortician stood waiting sweet-eyed beneath the lighted paper cylinders, which is to say the red and white corrugated glow-in-the-dark leeches; when his turn came, the customer support specialist drew him down beneath the rows of translucent stalactites and fluorescent macaroni which continually winked and blinked; she took his hand as gently as an easy death and pulled him down the velvet passageway to the second sinus where the halfway-approved clients sat at kidney-shaped marble tables, six men each, either ignoring each other as if on the bus, or smiling at each other, freeze-dried instant friends. (To the press the bellman would only say that everything was great, that they had a commitment to their employees.)

Everything I don’t even wear I send to the dry cleaner’s! the dentist was shouting.

Ah, replied the mortician, sipping his beer. You can do that, pal — indeed you can — but once the shirt’s starch is gone it never comes back again…

You’re going to get me pissed off, said the dentist in a low voice. You won’t like it when I’m pissed off.

That’s your privilege. That’s the privilege of your urine. But when you’re lying on my marble slab, colder than a frozen clam, how much urine will you work up then?

Hey, asshole, why are you even here? Why are you talking that way? You’re here to do a root canal on those girls, just like me. What do you keep going on about dying for?

Dying? said the mortician. Oh, dying. That was a great movie. It came out of nowhere. I remember when I saw it in Westwood, on the way to the dry cleaner’s.

The mortician’s number was called just after the senator’s. The hostess took him down the spiral velvet corridor, deeper and deeper into good repose. In a circular room that smelled like cherry cough drops, they sat him down at a video screen to watch the play of the overhead cameras in the girls’ rooms (the busy rooms being blacked-out like air raid Saturdays); so he watched the prey, rubbing his hands, watched a girl banging her head against the wall, twisting in her urine-soaked bed; another, hyper-sexed, squatted masturbating with a toy snake’s head like a good washerwoman twisting and massaging the wet garment against itself; a third rushed blindly blundering from wall to wall like a trapped bottle-fly; a fourth lay catatonic with her stuffed giraffe; a fifth crouched over the toilet, splashing her hands in and laughing; a sixth was trying to dance to the nursery rhyme muzak that the establishment piped in like the will of God; and the mortician said: Number six looks lively enough. That’s very good. You see, I love life.

The backers in L.A. thought that there ought to be a floor show. Feminine Circus stock had just gone public and was rising fast. Brady decided to hire a starlet to be Queen of the Whores. At that time he remained unaware that there was in fact a real Queen of the Whores, and had he known he wouldn’t have cared. The slapper found an enthusiastic girl named Babycakes Reed who could croon Lotte Lenya-esque songs as she strode about the stageboards, licking the head of the cordless mike and hiking up her black sequin gown.

Gluing himself like a ruby to the silver rail, the successful dentist had brunch at Feminine Circus. The waiter opened the champagne bottle with a deep echoing pop. The dentist’s orange juice glass remained eternally filled; his champagne glass was poured very slowly by a black paisley arm that waited until the foam stopped. On the table, a white orchid nuzzled his hand. Outside the curved window, palm trees, a waterfall… Babycakes Reed (or one of her fifty lookalikes) had just given him her autograph. Her stage name was Queen Zenobia. The successful dentist browsed among the mountains of bread and the row of silver reliquaries, each the size of a small child’s casket, whose tops slid open at his command to show hash browns, pork chops, sausages and bacon, ravioli, potatoes au gratin… Then there was the fruit mountain, the calving ground of waffles, the omelette stand, the towering eagle made of ice, the parlsey-floored sashimi terarium.

The last red thing is not a bicycle like the first blue thing, said the dentist.

He’d heard that from the mortician and was trying to figure out what it meant.

Oh, that tricky dog! he shouted, eating another omelette.

He liked the mortician now. When he’d gone too far inside that paralyzed girl with Niemann-Pick’s disease, until she became turquoise like a seal rushing underwater, the mortician had come with a little stinger kit of embalming chemicals to make it look like natural causes. (Not that she was real, of course, but when you ordered take-out, that virtual blood stayed on your living room floor. — We need to sacrifice the unprofitable giveaways, said Brady.) Later the mortician had even rerouted her from the crematorium, preserved her perfectly, and plasticized her. After that, the dentist started giving the mortician free X-rays and cleanings — professional courtesy, he called it. He got the senator to sponsor a pro-undertaker’s bill in Congress. They all stuck together like dogs fornicating in epoxy. They loved each other.

The successful dentist laughed. — Yes, I’m just bursting with seminal fluid!

As for the lord of it all, Dan Smooth, as for him who’d killed so many hearts (but that was a long time ago, those days of thick-and-fast), he swindled himself into nothingness (aside from the occasional tryst with a certain retarded girl named Sapphire), whereas Brady sat in a hightower suite which was loaded with blue hydrangeas. Three perfect pears, a grapefruit half as big as a basketball, and a leopard-spotted banana reclined in a silver vase, cushioned softly from the metal’s preciousness by leaves. — Message for Mr. Brady, apologized the concierge every ten minutes. Beside the banana stood a foot-high stack of the latest newspapers from around the world. Inside the credenza lurked a modem pre-dialled to the Brazilian Stock Exchange. Then there was a sliding panel behind which special cameras and telescopic lenses gave him a twenty-four-hour view of the guts of Feminine Circus, the engine room ceilinged with vast pipes shuddering, messes of heavy boilers, gauges, boilerplates; the utility halls of burning hot corrugated metal, the disposal rooms manned by illiterate, moustached, oily-fingered crews who ran and sweated in sandals, hauling shrouded bundles to the grinder well, the Lobotomy Factory’s diesel-powered unshielded belts turning, their condensers sucking up the desert water table; then more shuddering pipes, whirling spools, grey shouts he couldn’t hear… On the table where the third phone squatted, he sat drawing up new price lists, idly flipping through personnel figures. His accountants projected a thirty-two percent margin on property without the theme park; the theme park could make forty-five or fifty percent.

A phone rang. — Yup, he said. No, that girl isn’t available anymore. She retired. — You’ll take your business elsewhere? Fine; take it and shove it. — What? You’re reconsidering. Well, reconsider.

The maid was cleaning the bathroom mirror. She had to reach way up to clean the top, and when she did that, her breasts wiggled and her buttocks swayed. She was a Mexican with four children. — Nice stuff, said Brady.

A phone rang. — Well, he said, the Wall Street projections are that we’ll make $7.50 to $7.75 a share. No, the other big players today are mainly from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Malaysia. The Arabs are history. They go to London. They don’t come to Las Vegas anymore. All right. Be my guest. I’m raising my offering price tomorrow.

A phone rang. — Circus line, Brady speaking, he said. Yeah, we do. How many? No, we don’t do consignments. We buy outright. No, it’s irrevocable. Yeah, we pay five dollars a pound, that’s raw weight. Stripped. No high heels, no panties, nothing. I’ve been around the block, Buster. I’ve seen that trick with the weighted high heels. I’ve seen one on the open market where the seller even gave her lead suppositories — all three holes — just to make another ten bucks. Needless to say, we wouldn’t touch that company’s business with a ten-foot cottonwood dildo. On the other hand, I’ve seen the aproctous ones, you know what I mean? They don’t last long enough. You’re looking at it the wrong way. Think how much your staff saves when we take the pieces off your hands. No, it’s immaterial whether they’re sterilized; we doublecheck that ourselves. And their relatives can’t visit; I’ve seen that trick before, too. Once we have ’em, they’re virtual; they don’t exist. Pay the doctor off — are you kidding? You think we’re some fly-by-night business? Just forget the whole thing. Forget it, I said.

He hung up, smacking fist in palm with savage triumph. He led the ranks of fighters now.

The senator came back. The mortician came back. (Babycakes Reed got a raise.) The successful dentist came back. So did the short lesbian with round glasses and long hair and the New York boy, stubbled and self-bared, who loved his toy company. At the Carnal Arcade the barker was shouting: You win, you win! and the New York boy’s boyfriend cried: You’re kickin’ butt! Keep it up! — (The impregnation tables were only marginally profitable, just a convenience for the customer.) One middle-aged woman afflicted with gargoylism was in high demand, as a result of her swollen lips. The lesbian took her. The lesbian loved every minute. The lesbian said: She’s as greenish and sweet as an Egyptian orange! — The junked-out salesman came back. Just last night, he’d gotten a hooker at the Nitecap. He drove with her all the way to Daly City. Then he found out she was a boy. He got so mad he smashed his own TV with an axe. So he was ready now for a close-and-kill at Feminine Circus; he wanted to kick those retard cunts around a little, teach ’em what buying and selling was all about. When he explained his needs, the customer support specialist took him to a hunched little cretin girl without breasts or body hair. At the state fair there’d been a blackheaded goat who whirled its ears and head around, splaying its legs, shitting, looking for escape; again and again the tail lifted, and green pellets like shot tumbled out into the hay. Before he was half through with her, the cretin was like that, squealing in sadness and terror—

Too withdrawn, the doctor said. A little reserpine. But not too much.

That’s good; that’s good, the doctor said.

No, the usual fee will be fine, the doctor said. I’m always glad to help. Really a very interesting operation you have here. Just think of the research!

Ah, there’s a transitional period, of course, the doctor said. But when they begin to appreciate the opportunity they have, to interact with other females in their own ability range…

Babycakes Reed wants another raise, said the slapper.

Give it to her.

In which sense, boss?

Give her the raise.