L.A. Success (32 page)

“
It
tastes best on the skin,” she said and moved the glass even closer to my face.
I stuck out my tongue and licked the champagne off her salty skin. She closed
her eyes and purred softly. Then she emptied another glass.

When the bottle was empty, I gave
her my glass, which she downed happily. She stood up and held out her hand.

“
Come
with me, Clifford. I can't fight it anymore. I can't hold out against your
longing stares. Let's throw caution to the wind and go behave like the animals
that we are. Let them talk at the office, let them say what they will.” I gave
her my hand, and she began leading me to her room.

“
One
second Esmerda. I want to open another bottle. Go wait for me in your love nest.”

“
Not
bad...You're getting better,” she said and weaved down the hall.

I grabbed the flutes, went to the
kitchen and opened up a bottle of the Korbel. As I poured, I noticed it was
dark orange and smelled a little fruity. When I had a sip of it, I had the
impression that someone had made a carbonated drink out of vinegar and mango.

With the two flutes in my hand, I
hesitated for a moment. I thought about grabbing the album right then and there
and dealing with the consequences later. What could Gertie do to me anyway?
Convince Tommy to move out? Yeah, she could do that, and then I wouldn't have
anyone to do my laundry or clean up after me. I advanced down the dark hall
toward the glowing light at the end of the tunnel.

Her bed was taller than a normal bed.
There was something obscene about it, as if it had been adjusted to the perfect
height for standing beside it and doing someone who was lying across it. Gertie
was propped up on an enormous pile of cushions of various shapes. Her legs were
crossed, her hands were behind her head, and she was trying out different sexy
puckers and eyelid flutters. Four halogen lamps, set to maximum, stood in the
corners of the room. There were two video cameras mounted on tripods, one at
the head of the bed, the other at the foot.

“Are those things on?” I asked.

“Yep. They help me remember exactly
what goes on in here. Plus, there's just something special about posting videos
of yourself on the web.”

“Why do you need two cameras?” I
asked.

“My fans said I had too many shots
of man ass and ball flapping. This way I get different shots I can edit
together.”

I handed her the flute of champagne
and smiled stupidly at the cameras.

“You have to pretend they aren't
there,” she said. “Don't ever look right into them. It weirds out all the
voyeurs. They don't like to think you're watching them spank it.”

She lifted up the glass to her nose
and took a long sniff. The practiced expression of lustiness began to contort
slightly. I tried to make her think of something else before she got too
focused on the Korbel.

“So what do you want me to do?” I
asked a little more loudly than would have been natural. She lowered the glass
and looked up at me.

“
You're
going to ask me for that book I mentioned, and I'm going to roll over on my
stomach and fish it out of my nightstand for a long time. I'll be giving you
quite a show. You stick out your hand and try to feel my rump without me
noticing. I'll catch you in the act, slap you, and then pull you on top of me.
After some caressing, we'll have deeply meaningful sex, full of mutual respect.
Just be sure to spank me a lot.”

Gertie was speaking much slower than
before, and she was having trouble keeping eye contact. When she spoke to me,
it looked like she was focusing on my nose. Unfortunately, she was still too
sober for me to get what I wanted. The champagne she had already drunk was
clearly catching up with her, but I needed to stall until the full effect
arrived.

I put my glass on the nightstand and
moved to the end of the bed, where I sat down and took one of Gertie's feet in
my hands. I peeled off the flesh-colored knee-high and began massaging her
toes, rolling them between my fingers with the same gesture I normally use to
signal that something is going to cost a lot. She moaned contentedly and occasionally
laughed when I hit a ticklish spot. Then I saw her bring the flute up to her
lips. I took her foot firmly in my hands and pressed hard into the sole with my
two thumbs.

“Hey! What's the big idea, mister?”
she said, lowering the glass.

“That's a pressure point. If that
hurt, it means you are carrying too much stress. I barely even pressed on it.”

“Huh. I guess I have been a little
stressed lately,” she said and went back to focusing on a random spot on the wall,
her eyes half closed like those of a fat cat lying on a sunny windowsill.

The more I softly massaged her, the
closer she slowly moved the champagne toward her lips. When it would get within
a few inches, I'd dig in hard with my thumbs, sending a bolt of pain into her
slowly deadening receptors. She was able to muffle the yelps, but her upper lip
would contract on the left side like Elvis'. By giving her the occasional jolt,
I was able to keep her from drinking, but I realized it had the unfortunate side
effect of keeping her awake and feisty. After I finished with the other foot, I
knew I was going to have to find a new way to stall.

I slid up beside her and started
working on her shoulders, figuring this would be a good escalation of events
that, at the same time, wouldn't cost me anything. I was wrong. She leaned over
toward me, closed her eyes and moved in for a kiss. I weaved a little to avoid
her. She opened her eyes, readjusted her aim, closed her eyes and went for it
again. I resolved to do this. All I needed was the mental image of a hot babe
to get me through, but when I tried to think of a Hollywood starlet, Helen's
face came to me so clearly that I felt like my insides had been pulled down. I
leaned away from Gertie to avoid her lips. She kept coming forward until she
was stretched out farther than she had expected, and as she put her free hand
down on the bed to prevent herself from toppling over, I saw her throat
convulse.

“Eeu! I jus vomi-ed in ma mowf!” she
said and propped herself upright. She brought the Korbel up to her lips and
downed the entire thing in a few deep, throaty gulps. Then she crisped her lips
and gave a few involuntary shakes of her head. When she opened her eyes again
and was able to ease her contracted features, she looked at me indignantly.

“Herisson, I just swallowed two
liquids, and one of them tasted worse than vomit,” she growled. “You gave me
the old switcheroo with the booze, which means...”

She jumped up from the bed and took
off down the hall. As I got up to go after her, my foot got caught on the
blanket, and since the bed was higher than a normal one, I wasn't prepared for
the extra time it took my other foot to touch the floor, kind of like when
you're going up a flight of stairs in the dark, and, when at the top, you try
to step onto a final, imagined step. I tumbled over, knocking down the tripod
at the foot of the bed. I popped back up and ran down the hall.

Gertie had already grabbed the
album, which she now held tucked under her left arm. She was frantically
digging through a kitchen drawer, causing a duo of sounds to splash through the
house: the clinking of silverware and the pounding of utensils against wood.
When she saw me, she picked up the last thing her hand had passed over and
raised it into a stabbing position. It was a fondue fork.

“
Gertie,
this is all a misunderstanding.”

“
We'll
see about that,” she said and backed over to the fridge. She opened it and saw
the bottles of Korbel, turned her head away and closed her eyes as if she had
seen a photo of collateral damage from a pointless war.

“
Oh
the deception,” she said. “Using filthy booze and carnal promises to get what
you want. I'd normally give you points for that, but you can't try it against
me!”

“
That's
not exactly what I was going to do. I was going to ask you for the album.”

“After we got it on?”

“Well, no...”

“Ha!” she yelled and raised her
fondue fork menacingly. “You lied to me, villain! I should call Tommy and tell
him you tried to rape me!”

“Come on Gertie. Let's talk this
over.”

“I'd never talk anything over with a
backstabber like you,” she said, twisting her face into an expression of
hatred. Then a calm came over her. “None of this potential violence and
hate-filled accusation is making you horny, is it?”

I don't know what came over me.
Maybe it was the stress, maybe the accumulation of tiredness and uncertainty
about the future, but I started crying like a jackass.

“Oh Jesus, what the hell is this?”
she asked. “No seriously, stop that right now.”

“I'm sorry Gertie,” I said, choking
on my words. I could feel my nose starting to run, so I raised my arm up
preparing to wipe it on my sleeve.

“Don't do that! It's disgusting!
Wait a minute.” She grabbed a paper towel for me and came over. “Here you go.
Let it all out.”

“Thanks Gertie,” I said and blew out
what felt like a year's worth of suppressed frustration.

“
What
the hell's wrong with you, anyway?” she asked and led me over to the couch to
sit down.

“I've screwed everything up. My
dad's off wandering the streets again, my ex-girlfriend has gotten over me and
moved on, my career is a joke and even if I got what I need from Spielberg, how
long would that last me? I feel ashamed that I was going to take advantage of
you for that album. I'm sorry Gertie.”

“Answer me this: what exactly do you
want with those pictures you accidentally gave Steven?”

“The guy in the photos will pay me
to keep—hey, how do you know about that?”

“Steven called me today. He doubted
I had anything to do with this situation and wanted to see what I knew.”

“So you knew he had asked me to
bring him the album?”

“Of course,” she said and opened the
album. All the photos had been taken out.

“And you let me do all this without
saying a thing? You were going to let me get naked and make a dirty internet
movie for nothing?”

“Don't pretend you wouldn't have
enjoyed that, Herisson. And anyway, none of this was for nothing. I needed to
know what you were made of—to see if you were willing to go the distance. I've
been thinking for a while now that I'm ready to go down to part time and take
on a partner.”

“Because you're getting old and
you're ready to retire?” She shot me a look of death and rolled her eyes.

“I'm nowhere near retirement, bozo.
But this relationship with Tommy has made me realize what's important in life.
I want to take more time to have sex with very young immigrants whose
linguistic difficulties and ignorance of the way things work here make them
ideal boyfriends. You can tell them anything followed by 'that's what we do
here', and they believe it. I'm going to get my English-teaching certificate
and then start doing one-on-one lessons.”

“But did I pass your test? Are you
going to give me a job?” I asked, unable to hold back an optimistic smile.

“You could have done better. Taking
advantage of me was essential for your plan, but you skimped on the champagne
and blew it. Imagine what kind of message you'd be sending if you pulled that
while trying to sell a house. Your potential buyers would start thinking that
the property you were selling was just as crappy as the gimmick you were using
to sell it. Remember, since we actually do nothing of value for anyone, we
can't be insulting, because then clients get upset at having to cough up that
huge commission.”

“That seems so clear now, but when I
was getting ready for the evening, I didn't even think about it.”

“Rookie mistake,” she said. “But I'm
willing to work with you, as long as you're willing to bring something to the
table. People always work harder when they risk losing something. So what do
you have?”

I thought about this for a moment. I
couldn't risk my house, because when I did find my dad, I planned on putting
him in it and letting Tommy help me keep an eye on him. The only thing I had
was the money Ignacio was going to give me for the photos, and since I was going
to have to tell Gertie about that anyway, I figured what the hell.

“I'm going to get a ton of money for
those photos that Spielberg has, if I can get them back.”

“What kind of business have you
gotten yourself into here?” she asked.

“They're photos that a guy doesn't
want his rich wife to see. He'll give me a hundred grand to hand them over.”

“How did you get them in the first
place?”

“Someone else is paying me to
deliver them to the wife,” I said.

“And you think the guy who wants you
to deliver them isn't going to kill you once he finds out what you've done?” I
hadn't even considered the possibility, and Dennis would be arriving at the
airport the very next day.

“Now that you mention it, yeah, he
might. I've been told he's a little unbalanced.”