10

Charlie’s condominium was several miles past the western edge of the city limits, part of a collection of mostly unoccupied, identical luxury crackerboxes, and he did nothing in it but sleep. The year before he’d put up a Christmas tree, a real one that had become a serious fire hazard by the time he took it down in March, its needles all gone orange and scattered on the carpet around the stand. He’d set it up for the kids, then never quite got around to inviting them over. His thin walls were bare, and his living room furniture consisted in its entirety of a black La-Z-Boy, a matching ottoman, and a small television set. He stood there in the dark and thought about turning it on and watching a few minutes of a movie, but he was afraid of falling asleep and missing his appointment with Vic. His two suitcases sat by the door. It seemed like a lot of trouble to carry them both, and he wondered once again if he could consolidate them down to one, but he didn’t know how much room he’d need for the money. Better to play it safe with one of them half-empty.

On his refrigerator door was the only piece of decoration in the apartment, a crayon drawing of a clown Melissa had given him two years earlier. He opened the door and looked inside, wondering if anything in it was safe to eat, but all of his perishables appeared to have perished. Inside the door was a carton with eight eggs in it, and he tried to remember when he’d eaten the other four. He remembered making a couple of omelettes one morning after Dora had spent the night. When had he stopped seeing her, around Labor Day? Or was it even earlier than that?

He went into the bedroom and sat on the bed in the dark. He’d only brought her here once. They almost always went to her place, mainly because his was so empty. Maybe he could call her one last time, apologize, try to explain why he was leaving, maybe try to get her into the sack one last time, for old times’ sake.

Again he felt the beginnings of an erection. What was going on tonight, anyway? Maybe the fact that he was leaving town was making him horny, some sociobiological need to leave part of his genetic code behind before moving on. Maybe it was the coke nullifying the usual antiaphrodisiac effects of the alcohol. Maybe it was the unprecedented close contact with Renata and the unbelievable suggestion of a later reward. Good God, had he actually turned down a chance to fuck Renata? What a way that would have been to say good-bye to the old town.

He shook his head, resisting his overwhelming desire to lie back on the bed. This wasn’t going to work; if he stayed in the apartment any longer he’d fall asleep. It would be better to head east in the direction of Vic’s house. He’d stop in at the Midtown Tap and kill some time, maybe get a chance to see Tommy after all. He picked up his bags and took them outside. He started to lock the door, then thought better of it and walked away with the key still in the lock. That would give them something to think about.

Driving east toward town on the state highway, he felt himself getting drowsy again, and there was a dull throb at his hip. The snow was coming down in big, slow-moving flakes now, churning brightly across his high beams, and his visibility was only about twenty feet. He was keeping it just below forty, half out of caution and half out of a dim but growing awareness of his own drunkenness. Passing an off-ramp just short of the city limits he pulled off on an impulse and headed west onto the access road half a mile to a parking lot behind a long, low, one-story building. He misjudged his speed entering his space and crunched the front end of the Mercedes into the orange brick wall of the building. He got out and had a look. Some of the bricks were cracked, and the Mercedes’ bumper was scarred pretty badly. He shrugged and went inside. It was Bill Gerard’s building and Betsy van Heuten’s Mercedes. Who gave a shit?

A bell gave a sad, dull tinkle when he pushed on the door. It was dark inside and smelled of ammonia.

“Charlie. I was hoping you were a customer.” Behind the counter a heavyset young man with wild curly hair was bent over a film cutter. He had on a pair of torn blue bib overalls over a pair of ratty long johns. “Did you just crash into the wall out there?”

“Yeah, that was me. How’s it going, Lenny?”

“We need a new projector in booth five. The one in there now keeps chewing up film.”

Charlie winced at the thought of shelling out the cost of a new projector; it was hard getting used to the idea that these problems were no longer his. “Can’t we just fix it?” he asked out of habit.

“It’s been fixed about six times already. Tonight it chewed this one up so bad I’m not sure I can save it.”

“Slow night?” he asked.

Lenny spread his arms out and swiveled them around at the empty store. “Had one drunk come in about eight-thirty, fell asleep in booth two. Otherwise it’s been like this since I got here. Don’t know if it’s the holiday or the storm, but at least it gives me a chance to repair the movies.”

“Too bad you have to work on Christmas,” Charlie said.

“I don’t care. My family’s back east and I’m an atheist. Just another night as far as I’m concerned.”

“You don’t celebrate Christmas at all?”

“Not really . . . wait a sec, though, let me show you something. It’s in the trunk of my car.”

He went outside and Charlie moved behind the counter, examining the box to the movie the young man was repairing. On its cover a blond-haired woman grimaced in pained forbearance, eyes closed, crimson upper lip pulled excitedly back to reveal her teeth and tongue. The title was Backdoor Housewife, part of the “Anal Connoisseurs” line. On the bottom of the box were reproductions of the cover art of a variety of other titles in the series: Cornhole Teacher’s Aide, Rectal Nurse, Buttlove Babysitter, Anal Pom Pom Girl, Dirt Road Debutante—all the vicarious Super-8 sodomy an anal connoisseur could ask for. He looked again at the photo on the box, comparing the woman’s impassioned facial expression to Cupcake’s look of deadpan ennui when photographed in the same situation, and decided that Cupcake probably didn’t have what it took for a big career in porn.

The young man returned carrying a large cardboard box. “I did this for a studio arts class.” He pulled out a canvas-covered object about a foot high and set it out on the counter next to the film cutter. “Ready?” Charlie nodded, not really very interested.

He pulled the canvas off. Standing over a prostrate Santa Claus doll was a Mrs. Santa doll, naked except for a pair of black boots, her nipples and pubic hair luridly painted in and a crude whip in her hand. Beneath her the Santa doll had on a tiny white slip, and his hands were tied together. They both had cherubic, smiling faces. “It’s called ‘Here Comes Santa Claus.’ ”

“That’s nice,” Charlie said.

“They sell these dolls at craft stores. People buy ’em and make their own little Mr. and Mrs. Santa outfits for them. Anyway, they come in the package dressed in just their underwear; she has on a slip and he has on a pair of boxer shorts. So this just sort of suggested itself.”

“How do you mean, suggested itself?”

“I got the pose from one of these.” He scanned the S&M rack and came up with a magazine called Dominant Bitches. He flipped through it and handed it to Charlie. There was a photo of a couple in this very position, although the dominating female and groveling male were considerably younger and fitter than Mr. and Mrs. Claus. “I got an ‘A’ on it.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Charlie said.

Lenny replaced the canvas and put the dolls back in their box, then moved back onto his stool and resumed splicing. “So what do you think? Can we get another projector?”

Charlie winced at the thought of promising a cash outlay, even knowing he wouldn’t have to make good on it himself. From the time he and Vic had started keeping the second set of books he’d become monastically frugal with all corporate expenses, and the purchase of a replacement projector, necessary though it might be, was something he would have struggled against until it became inevitable. On the other hand, why argue about it?

“Sure,” he said. It would be Deacon’s problem in two days.

“Are you kidding?”

“No, why would I be kidding?”

“I don’t know, but I was expecting to have to bug you about it for six months. That’s great, Charlie.”

“Merry Christmas, Lenny,” he said.

Rolling eastward on the access road on his way to the state highway, half-listening to an AM police report about an office Christmas party that had degenerated into a drunken brawl leading to seven arrests, he felt the need to pay a farewell visit to another outpost in his Westside empire. He jammed his right foot solidly down on the brake pedal and once again found himself spinning wildly on the ice, far faster than he’d spun in the Lincoln, and for a moment he actually thought he was airborne. Even as he realized he’d completely lost control he found himself analyzing the relevant differences between the Mercedes and his trusty Lincoln. Lower center of gravity, he thought calmly as the outskirts of the city rotated around him, that’s why it got away from me. There was a terrifying jolt and a deep, loud thud as the Mercedes came down off the side of the road into a ditch with its engine dead, its lights still on and the radio still offering its cautionary tale of yuletide revelry gone too far.

He sat there shaking and silent for thirty seconds. Then he twisted the ignition key off and then on again. The engine turned over instantly, on the very first try. He slammed it into reverse, back into forward, and back again, and in less than a minute of rocking he was out of the ditch and sailing west again on the access road. This wasn’t a bad car at all. He had to admit he wasn’t sure if even the Lincoln would have started right up and taken him immediately out of the ditch. After he got settled again he’d have to get himself one of these.

A mile down the access road he saw the light of the port-a-sign, bright yellow and buried in snow past its trailer hitch:

FRI NDLYEST MASAGE IN TOWN
COPRATE RATES NEW MASUESES

Atop the concrete-block building stood a cracked plastic sign with a crudely painted silhouette of a female nude and the words MIDAS TOUCH MASSAGE. Three cars were parked out front, all of them under a foot of drift and without visible tracks leading to where they sat, and tracks and depressions where at least two other cars had been parked at some point in the not-too-distant past.

He stopped next to a rusted-over green Dart, switched off the ignition in the middle of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and got out to survey the damage the ditch had done. More dings on the front end, but as far as he could see the undercarriage wasn’t leaking. He’d check the snow under it for fluid when he came out.

A thirtyish woman with short, spiky blond hair and a great deal of faith in the corrective powers of cosmetics sat behind a desk reading a thick paperback romance. She smiled seductively at the opening door, the smile evaporating instantly but without malice at the sight of Charlie.

“Oh, it’s you. For a second there I thought I was going to have to get back to work.”

“Merry Christmas, Ivy.” Her eyes were already back on her book. “Slow night?”

“Course it’s slow; it’s Christmas Eve and there’s a blizzard and most people have better things to do than drive all the way out of town for a twenty-dollar hand job.”

“Any customers at all?”

“A few. Mostly guys who’ve just been to church with the wife and kids and want to talk dirty. Why do you suppose guys get like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we had two of ’em tonight out of like maybe four total. Madelyn was with this guy in there, I thought he must be hurting her. He was yelling ‘Fucking filthy whore!’ over and over so loud I could hear it out here in reception, so I checked through the mirror and there he was, standing there in his three-piece suit with his pants down around his ankles and his dick in her mouth, had her by the goddamn ears, looked like he wanted to kill her. I would’ve gone in except she knew I was watching and she gave me the high sign. Afterward he tipped her fifty. Dollars. He left this on the desk on his way out.”

She handed him a cheaply printed pamphlet entitled Is Dancing Christian? Beneath the bright red cursive title a couple of crudely drawn kids, a boy with a crew cut and a girl in bobby socks, jitterbugged with satanic abandon.

“I hope you assured him that dancing is strictly forbidden here. Did Madelyn leave yet?”

“Her shift doesn’t end until two.”

“Give her another fifty out of petty cash. Christmas bonus. Same for yourself.”

She narrowed her right eye at him. “Nuh-uh. You’re drunk. I heard what happened down at the Tease-O-Rama tonight.”

“What’d you hear?”

“I heard you waived stage rentals on Cupcake and Francie, and after you left Dennis made ’em pay it back.”

“He did what?”

“I talked to Cupcake. What she said was, Dennis said you were drunk, and Bill Gerard better not find out you were comping drinks and waiving stage rentals, and all he needed was for Deacon or Vic to walk in and find out about it and fuck up everybody’s Christmas.”

“Goddamn that Dennis. When I do something I don’t care whether he agrees with it, I just want it to stay done. Shit.”

“Calm down, Charlie. It’s a nice gesture, I just can’t accept it.”

“I’ll write out a receipt and sign it. It’ll be my responsibility.”

“Huh-uh.” She was back in the world of the paperback, and he might as well have been alone in the room.

“All right, here . . .” He took his wallet out of his pocket and peeled off a fifty. “Merry Christmas. Here’s another one for Madelyn.” He put two bills on the desk.

She left both bills sitting there for a second, then picked them up. “Thanks, Charlie.”

“Who else is there?”

“Well, there’s Lynette, she already went home, and Tina didn’t work tonight . . .”

Charlie took two more bills out of the wallet.

“And Cupcake’s usually in one night a week.”

He gave her another.

“This is a lot of money, Charlie.”

“Is that everybody?”

“I think so.”

“Good, ’cause I got less than fifty left.”

“You sure about this, Charlie?”

“I’m sure. I got plenty of money; don’t worry about that.”

“You want a blow job, Charlie?”

He replaced the wallet in his hip pocket. “I’m not doing this because I wanted a blow job.”

“I know that. I meant more like a Christmas present.”

“Thanks anyway. I gotta get going. Have a merry Christmas.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m having one already. Thanks for the bonus, though.”

Outside there was more snow on the Mercedes, but no fluid underneath it. Truly a fine car. If he had the time he’d head back to the Tease-O-Rama and set Dennis straight about the stage rentals, but he wanted to stop for a quick one at the Midtown Tap before he moved on to Vic’s, and after that he was out of town. Maybe he’d phone Dennis from the Tap.

The Midtown Tap was dark and warm, the Christmas lights ringing the room had been turned on, and Andy Williams droned over the PA singing “The Little Drummer Boy.” The bartender acknowledged Charlie with a slight wave of his hand as he served an elderly couple at the far end of the bar. There were maybe twenty people scattered around the room, none of them looking too cheerful.

“I’d like to get my hands on that goddamn drummer boy,” the bartender said when he finally made his way over to Charlie. “I’d wring his fucking neck. Pa rumpa pump pum.”

“Not your favorite Christmas carol?”

“None of them are. It wouldn’t be so bad if Tommy didn’t make us play the same goddamn tape over and over all night. I bet I have to hear the same twenty carols two or three hundred times each between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“That’d dampen your Christmas spirit, I guess.”

“But none of ’em’s as bad as ‘The Little Drummer Boy.’ ”

Charlie nodded in agreement, then jumped at an unexpected slap on the back. Tommy stood behind him, in a dark brown jumpsuit and a wide-brimmed fedora, hands on his hips, staring at him as though his presence there was a source of great puzzlement.

“How you doing, Charlie? Is Lester bitching about the music again?”

“Damn right I am. It drives people away.”

“Yeah, yeah, and right up till Thanksgiving you were saying the same thing about Peter Frampton. Drives people away, my ass.”

“It does. They hear it all day long on the radio, in the supermarket, in the shopping mall; they come to a bar they don’t want to hear that shit anymore. Especially the ‘Little Fucking Drummer Boy.’ ”

“Watch your mouth, Les, you’re talking about the fucking Bible now.”

Les sighed. “ ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ is not in the Bible, Tommy.”

“What the fuck do you know about what’s in the Bible, you fucking atheist?”

“I know ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ is a cartoon they show on TV every Christmas and it was never in the Bible.”

“Shut up and get Charlie a drink and leave us alone. We gotta talk.”

Lester shrugged wearily and fixed Charlie a CC, water back, and went down to the far end of the bar to sulk.

“Did you get the envelope?” Charlie said.

“Yeah, luckily. What’s the matter with you, leaving it with Susie?”

“She gave it to you, right?”

“Sure, and then she hassled me for forty-five minutes, wanting to know what it was. Christ, that chick’s annoying. She says you used to fuck her. Is that true?” His nostrils flared slightly at the thought.

“Close to ten years ago. No shit, you should have seen her then.”

“Was she any smarter than she is now?”

“I think she had a few more brain cells on active duty.”

“So what the fuck are you giving it to me this early for? We don’t have a delivery until the thirtieth, right?”

“I wasn’t sure I was going to see you before that.”

“I fucking hate it when people start to improvise, Charlie. Makes me nervous things might change. You and Vic are still with me here, right? Gerard is still in the dark?”

“Of course he is,” Charlie said. For the time being he was, anyway.

“He’d fucking better be. So how’s your Christmas? You see your kids and all that shit?”

“Yeah. Saw them earlier.”

“Good for you, good for you . . .” He scanned the room. “Look at these poor, pathetic assholes, nowhere else to go on Christmas Eve. You guys were open tonight, right?”

“Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, Tommy.”

“Somebody’s gotta stay open. That’s what I figure. Let the staff bitch all they want.”

“Shit, that reminds me, I have to make a call.”

The phones were next to the men’s room and directly underneath a loudspeaker rumbling Jack Jones’s version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Charlie signaled Lester to turn the volume down, but Lester shrugged helplessly. Apparently the issue had come up before. He put a quarter into the slot and dialed.

The phone at the Tease-O-Rama rang about twenty times before Dennis finally picked it up. “Tease-O-Rama,” he snapped.

“Dennis, it’s Charlie.”

“I can’t talk right now. My hands are totally fucking full and it’s your fault. I got a clubful of angry customers and nobody to dance for ’em.”

“What do you mean, nobody to dance?”

“Cupcake and Francie walked out.”

“What for?”

“No reason.”

“Bullshit, I heard you made ’em pay back the stage rentals I refunded.”

“You never should have done that, Charlie. Now look what I’m in for.”

“Don’t blame me; you’re the one who tried to make them pay the stage rentals back.”

“I gotta go, Charlie. The house is buying a round, just so you know. These guys are pissed.”

“I’ll see if I can’t find the girls and get ’em back to work.”

“What’s the fucking point; we’re closing in twenty minutes. You guys don’t pay me enough to put up with this kind of bullshit on Christmas Eve.”

Charlie looked up at the big black clock, its fluorescent violet markings competing with the blinking ring of colored lights surrounding it. It was twenty minutes to two. He hung up the phone. It was time to head for Vic’s anyway.