I sat next to a man who Rumpy called Smiley Bob. He wore a creased white cowboy hat, with a hole in its brim (bullet entry?), liked to doodle his fingers upon the bar and walking them up and down Rumpy's crossed thigh. He laughed a lot, even when Rumpy sat staring in the mirror behind the bar, saying nothing. "That son of mine better get some sense and use the Smith and Wesson .357 snubnose I gave him, getting that son of a bitch Lupus before the slime mold gets the better of Boyd," she said.
Smiley Bob, rolling two dice in one hand, the poor man's Queeg, said, "I can getcha a weapon, you know that. It'll be more satisfying if you do it. Afterwards, we can skeedaddle to my place and smoke big O."
Rumpy turned away from the mirror, paused, silent for a spell, then said, "It would damage Boyd's self-worth. He's either high up in the mesosphere in good spirits or beneath the earth like a mole," she said, her arm raising the snifter, nose hair wet with alcohol. When she left for the bathroom, banging the clubfoot down hard to the beat of a Ramone's song, I walked over to Smiley.
"I'll get to the point before your friend returns," I said, putting my microbrew down. "Can you get me something? I overheard your conversation."
He fidgeted with those damn dice, clicking them together, and said, "What do you want?"
"A gun. I'm no cop or snitch."
"I can tell by your looks. Intelligent, with red eyes, and desperate," he said. "Nothing gets past Smiley Bob. I've been doing it for years and never busted." Thankfully, the bar had thinned out, or else I would not have been so aggressive.
"I figure you're an honest man. I'm well-acquainted with hardworking riffraff. I won't get into durance vile dealing with you," I said.
"Durance Vile? What's that?" I gave him back my clenched teeth smile, saying it means the slammer. He told me to walk outside to his van. We walked in lockstep. He clicked the lock open and we entered the back. It was weapon heaven. I looked around, handling a Ruger .357 Blackhawk, with a six and one-half inch barrel. He threw in a box of shells. I paid him cash. I would have to sell lots more art work now. He handed me a black plastic bag and I held it at my thigh, the weight comforting.
Before I left, Smiley said casually, "You're an artist. I've seen some of your work."
Surprised, I said, "Hope you liked it. Not enough money in art but I get by." He stopped fooling with the dice, saying, "If you like I'd take to you a galley not displaying much art these days. Lost the zeitgeist somewhere in the eighties."
I paused, then said, "Is it figurative?" He locked the van, saying, "If you mean silk-screening is figurative, then yeah."
"Who's it by? A local artist?"
"Would you say Andy Warhol is local?"
I gulped, recovered, saying, "How the fuck did he get here?"
"That's a mystery. I know the owner of the gallery. If you like I can take you to him. He lives above it."
We drove to the gallery. It had taken fifteen minutes, and we stood outside the owner's apartment. He invited us in. An older man than either Smiley or I, Val's long sideburns made him look distinguished rather than dated. Smiley beckoned the man to the other side of the living room. They conferred in hushed voices, and then we went downstairs at the back of the apartment. He explained its complicated architecture.
"This staircase is secret. Only three people know about them: Myself, Smiley and Dr. Vinadictive. Now you."
Astonished, I said, "He's my shrink. Does he own it?"
"Yes. He makes monthly payments on it," said Val. I liked Val; so trusting.
Val opened a large steel vault as big as a small bank's. He pushed some buttons and turned on the vault's lights, displaying Warhol's work. I stood before a silk screen of Roman Polanski.
"This costs millions. He's wealthy but not that rich," I said. Was Boyd mobbed up?
"It's an unknown Warhol. Only the doctor gains entrance here. I go upstairs when he's here. He stays sometimes for an hour, usually thirty minutes," said Val.
"Is he a movie buff?" Smiley asked Val.
"I never inquired. He pays me just to see the Polanski. Strange, those smelly towels in the vault." Self-delusional puritans still existed. "'In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you'." This room was superior to the one in Jesus' metaphor.
Hell yes he was a film lover. We talked about movies, old and current, classic and blockbusters, foreign and Hollywood. Thorn told me Boyd was on "vacation" seeing movies. I thought of Polanski's films, about his casts: Catherine Deneuve, Mia Farrow, Faye Dunaway, Sharon Tate, Nastassja Kinski. I had fantasized many online actresses, including those. Although I favored younger, non-actress females, I sat in front of the monitor, matching actresses as closely as I could to nameless faces and bodies, oiling my shaft and going at it for many hours until blastoff. Doesn't every man do that? I thought. I thanked Val, walking upstairs, then out the front door. Smiley Bob drove me to my house.
I called Thorn and asked where Boyd was. She said he would be late, making his first appointment at 10:30.
"Good," I said, "pick me up at home." I took the plastic bag with the loaded .357. She arrived in the Lexus.
"Let's do it right in front of his door, in the parking lot, under his nose."
She said, "Yeah, why not." She parked twenty feet from the entrance to the office. I touched her bare thigh, Thorn wearing cutoff jeans and she felt me up. We abruptly stopped when out of the corner of my eye came Boyd's Mercedes. He sped up when he saw the Lexus, ramming the back door, then reversed and slammed into us again, this time smashing the front door. He got out, the snubnose in his hand. We ducked, waiting for bullets. Two shots hit the Lexus's body, the third blowing out a tire.
In the chaos Thorn had the presence of mind to call the police on her cell phone, ducking under the dashboard. They got here quickly. After all, it was a prestigious, high-rent building in Zonggone. The sirens got louder and three police cars burst into the parking lot. Cops drew their weapons, holding their fire, Boyd pointing the Ruger at them, screaming, "You'll never take Polanski," then fired more rounds at the police, emptying his gun. I heard many clicks as the empty chambers spun around.
I got out, as did Thorn, and we crept behind the Lexus, I holding the revolver in both hands, squeezing off all the rounds, attempting to kill Dr. V. I aimed at Boyd, wanting blood on my hands, but the cops' gunfire did that for me. First, I saw a cop fall, not moving. Second, Boyd's body and head bled, and he dropped. No stigmata of holy martyrs. The parking lot's tarmac swarmed with the Why-are-ye-fearful-O-of-little-faith crowd. More vehicles swooped into the lot. Ambulance attendants took the downed cop away.
I stood next to Thorn as plainclothes personnel headed towards me. I dropped the Smith and Wesson. Boyd's corpse lay near my feet and I kicked him in his bullet-ridden head. His brains spilled out. Where were the maggots? I thought. Modesty triumphed, the law drawing closer, so I could not screw his dead, bitch ass. They surrounded me and some held out IDs, showing they were from the Justice Department, others withholding identification.
White-uniformed men put me into a straitjacket, strapping my arms around my torso, then helped me into an armored car. The car sped away and when it stopped and a man opened the door, four burly guys marched me and my shackled legs to a plane. After stops for re-fueling, we reached the intended destination. Men spoke Arabic and English. Eventually I lay naked in a dark cell. When five men entered, lights came on. I had been renditioned, something I thought the U.S. government abolished.
They waterboarded me many times, never interrogating me afterwards. Each time a man removed the wet towel, I heard a recorded child's voice recite, You violated 18 U.S.C. 2257 and you will be guilty forever.
During these years in solitary confinement, I will never learn whether the cop died. Often, in my sleep, I dream of mourners at a cemetery, peering into the dark earth.
I cannot say I had truly lived life to its fullest unless it was rounded by at least one murder.