The Bones (13 page)

"Babe!" Frank stands next to the Caddy, one foot in the car, the other on the road, smiling at Lloyd as traffic glides by
them in both directions. "Fancy running into you." Frank's insouciance belying their location at the nexus of this busy intersection.

"Wha—" Lloyd is not able to articulate his question as cars whiz past in both directions. He notices one of his legs has begun
to shake.

"I take my eyes off the road for two seconds and I'm kissing your metallic ass. Serves me right for roiling a joint when I'm
driving. If the cops stop while we're here, I'd appreciate if you wouldn't mention that." Lloyd walks to the back of the car,
consciously trying to control the independent movements of his leg, and sees the Saab is unmarked. Relief. "What are you doing
out in the Valley?" Frank making with the small talk.

"My
office
is in Studio City."

"Right, right, the Lynx deal."

"Hey, look, I'd love to stand around and get sunstroke in the middle of Ventura here, but I have to be somewhere." The leg
beginning to settle down.

"Lloyd, wait a minute. I just sold a show to Pam Penner over at Lynx," Frank lies, needing to bait the hook.

"Congratulations."

"You want to write it with me?" Frank offers, thinking he could call Pam from his cell phone and tell her he's persuaded Lloyd
Melnick, whose very name sent a frisson of greed up the collective spine of every network executive in town, to cowrite
My Life and High Times.

"You know, I'd love to but I'm working on my own stuff."

"So I should go fuck myself?"

"I'm not saying that."

"Suit yourself, babe."

Frank may need Lloyd, but begging is not going to happen, and although the conversation is clearly over, Lloyd is not sure
how to get offstage.

"Where's Otto? It's a shame he didn't get this on tape."

"Fuckin' kid has no follow-through," Frank replies. "He booked."

"That's too bad."

Frank's face is back in neutral, and looking over Lloyd's shoulder, he says, "Get in your car, the light's green."

Lloyd turns and walks back to his Saab. His last two encounters with Frank, at the doughnut shop after the farcical reenactment
of the Kennedy assassination and here on Ventura, have ended unhappily, and both times, Lloyd realizes with a slight rising
of bile, were because Frank refused to acknowledge the shifting of Lloyd's place in their universe, his ascension to a loftier
plane. He arrives back at the car and attempts to gather the air bag, but he can't get it to move. Lloyd shoves it this way
and that, but the hard rubber has inflated to its limit and is not showing signs of pliancy. As things stand, he can't get
into the car.

Frank, who has been watching this, approaches.

"Problem?"

Lloyd can't help reading the sentiment "Who's in control now, punk?" in Frank's seemingly innocent question.

"The air bag won't deflate."

"I should leave you here in the middle of the street until some Mexican with a tow truck comes and balls your white ass out,
but I'm a gentleman, so stand back, Lloyd, Dr. Bones is in the house."

Frank reaches into his pocket, removes a gravity knife, and before Lloyd can say "What's a Jew doing with a switchblade?"
flicks it open with the ease of a
West Side Story
cast member and shanks the recalcitrant rubber, causing a stream of air to forcefully expel and the bag to deflate.

"You're good to go, babe."

Stunned once again by Frank's capacity for the sudden spasm of violence, Lloyd stares at the comic's receding form as he walks
laconically to the Caddy, looking to Lloyd like the dark stranger ambling out of town after having saved the women and children
from the rustlers.
What does that make me?
he wonders.
Certainly not a rustler.

Pushing the spent air bag aside, Lloyd gets in the car and starts the engine. The light turns red before he can get away so
he sits there looking at Frank in his rearview mirror.

Who carries a knife nowadays? I mean, other than Crips and Bloods? And what is Frank's pathology anyway? It can't just be
that he grew up in Texas. What deep interior weirdness is manifesting in the guns, the knives; the who-knows- what-else that's
lending such piquant flavor to the Bones persona?

When the light changes and Lloyd turns up Coldwater Canyon, it occurs to him that Frank slammed the Caddy into the Saab intentionally.

Lloyd makes it to the LAX Gun Club in time for his lesson, which is given to him by the same man with the wispy goatee who
rented them the guns the previous week. After some perfunctory talk about gun safety, the goateed man, whose name turns out
to be Zip, has Lloyd firing away with a Colt 9mm. Under Zip's expert tutelage, Lloyd is regularly hitting the target, and
when his hour is up, he leaves the building feeling like a killer and wondering if he should call Frank and challenge him
to a shooting match.

Chapter 8

The cell phone sitting on the passenger seat of Stacy Melnick's new Sunsation, the latest in electric-car technology, trills
impatiently. Navigating down a leafy Brentwood side street, one hand on the wheel, the other holding a mocha latte with an
extra shot of espresso, Stacy maneuvers the candied caffeine into a cup holder and reaches for the phone, quickly checking
the caller ID and seeing the ubiquitous PRIVATE CALLER on the tiny screen.

"Hello."

"Stacy, it's Daryl Hyler."

"Daryl!" Stacy exclaims, not bothering to hide her surprise and pleasure that this paradigm of well-heeled decency has tracked
her down on her cell phone. She gently presses the brakes, slowing the Sunsation to better be able to concentrate on Daryl's
needs.

"How are ya, hon?" Everyone
hon
to Daryl until she needs to shove them off a cliff.

"I'm great. What's going on?"

"I'm calling you from our jet. We're about to land in Spain so I have to talk quickly. I'm putting a little dinner together
for Save Our Aching Planet at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for about a thousand people and I wanted to ask you to be on the
committee."

These are magic words indeed to a social mountaineer like Stacy Melnick. It is all she can do to keep from crawling through
the phone and emerging on the other end to kiss this woman on her spa-softened cheek. "And it's not until May so don't tell
me you have a conflict."

"I'd love to be on the committee."

"You used to be a dietitian, right?"

"I have a degree from NYU."

"Then you can help with the menu. Just remember, Robert doesn't like squab. A lot of times people want to fancy the menu up
at these things with stuff like squab, but let's stick to chicken for the poultry choice, okay? We're an egalitarian organization."

"That's fine. There's a lot you can do with chicken."

"And, hon, one more thing. Everyone on the committee is expected to contribute at least twenty-five thousand, okay? I'll have
my assistant call you next week to tell you when the first planning meeting's going to be. Bye-ee."

"Bye." Stacy hangs up, flushed with a feeling of infinite possibility. Her husband has a huge television deal, their son is
matriculated in the Tiny Tuna Pre-School, they are almost ready to move to their new home in Brentwood, and now Daryl Hyler,
doyenne of relatively young Los Angeles, after having offered to help Dustin Melnick gain admission to the Horizon School,
wants Stacy to join in her noble quest to save the planet. Life is too, too rich.

"Tell me again why the wood floor has pegs?"

Stacy and Lloyd are talking to Garrett Quickly, their laconic builder. They're standing in the entrance hallway of the new
Melnick home looking into the empty living room. There is no furniture in the entire house, and with its expensive woods and
moldings it has the feel of a giant plush jewel box emptied of its baubles and waiting for the duchess to return from a ball.
Garrett, a slender, low-key guy in his forties accustomed to navigating the challenging personalities of his clients with
the aplomb of an experienced sailor caught in a squall, looks at Stacy and scrunches his eyes up as if to imply amusement.
She might have shared his amusement were he not already five months behind schedule.

"My guys ordered the wrong wood."

"Well, we can see that," Stacy retorts.

Lloyd, more concerned with the inner workings of the Mongolian yak trade than the accoutrements of their prospective living
room, looks on impassively. She knows help from this quarter will not be forthcoming.

"I want it ripped out and replaced."

Stacy continues in this vein, reciting a litany of problems that must be attended to by Garrett and his subordinates before
the upwardly mobile Melnicks can justifiably relocate. When she has exhausted her list of items and received assurances from
the eternally patient Quickly that everything will be attended to immediately, the builder takes his leave, desperate to escape
before Stacy realizes she has further demands that must be addressed.

Stacy finds Lloyd in a small room upstairs.

"What's this space going to be used for?" he asks.

"A wrapping room."

"A wrapping room?"

"For gifts."

"We need a special room to wrap gifts?"

"I thought it would be nice. I ordered a big table and this thing that lets you hang ten kinds of gift wrap." Seeing the incomprehension
in his eyes, a look that seems to ask how it could be that this middle-class daughter of New Jersey now required a room whose
sole purpose was the wrapping of gifts, Stacy changes her tack. "Lloyd, I just got a call from Daryl Hyler on my way over
here. She was on her private jet." Said with great relish:
Lloyd, people are calling me from private jets!
"She asked me to serve on a benefit committee, hon." Pausing briefly, vainly hoping for congratulations. "We're moving in
a different world now."

"Okay." Not worth the fight.

"Come on, I want to show you something."

A few moments later they are standing in the spacious bathroom of the master suite, a mélange of marble tile, high-end porcelain,
brushed steel, and beveled glass with a twelve-jet shower, a raised Jacuzzi, and a crystal chandelier that appears to have
been purloined from one of the grand hotels of Europe. Lloyd is thinking its intended purpose seems at odds with the museum-like
sense of order and quiet when he looks at his wife's reflection in the mirror and sees tears running down her face. Turning
from her image to the actual Stacy, he reaches a hand out and tenderly touches her cheek.

"Are you thinking about what all this is costing me?"

Stacy smiles and, pushing his hand away, chokes back a sob.

"No."

"What, then?"

"I just never thought I would ever have a bathroom this beautiful."

Lloyd can think of no response to this statement other than silence. Then the dam breaks and she is openly weeping, clutching
Lloyd to her, wetting his frayed T-shirt with her copious tears. Not knowing what else to do, Lloyd hugs his wife, puzzled
by this Ecstasy of the Fixtures he is witnessing.

"Thank you so much for giving it to me."

It occurs to Lloyd this might not be the best time to tell her he is toying with the idea of walking away from his deal and
writing a book.

As Frank drove away after having rammed into Lloyd, he noticed the Vicodin borrowed from Honey was not performing its dependably
pain-hammering magic, so he headed to the Beverly Hills offices of Dr. Randy Cashman, an internist whose quickness with a
prescription made him a favorite of innumerable professional entertainers. Cashman was a much loved figure in the recording
industry, many of whose denizens had, in appreciation of his services, gifted him with framed gold records, which now lined
the doctor's office walls, gleaming reminders of a glittering clientele. Frank admired these totems of triumph as he sauntered
toward the examination room to await the doctor's tender ministrations.

"Why don't I do an album?" Frank sits on the examination table in his blue bikini underwear talking to Robert on his cell
phone. "I'm here in my doctor's office and the place is lined with so many gold records, I don't know whether he's going to
give me a tetanus shot or a Grammy."

"Let me look into it. I'll see if there's interest."

Robert is seated at his desk in his office, having put his lawyer on hold to take Frank's call, talent always first, never
mind he was in the middle of dealing with Barry Bitterman's hundred-million-dollar lawsuit.

"Can we release it ourselves?"

"What, you're gonna sell it in the back of the clubs like Girl Scout cookies? Don't think like a
pisher,
Frank. Let me see if I can get you a deal."

"Anything from Lynx yet?"

"Still waiting."

Frank snaps the phone shut just as Dr. Cashman glides in, slim, balding, all business.

"What's up, Mr. Frank? Nothing life-threatening, I hope. I got one of the surviving Bee Gees in the next room with an inflamed
larynx." Doctor-patient confidentiality out the window here in Beverly Hills.

"Take a look at my back, Doc."

Cashman steps to the side of the examination table and makes a sound that indicates he does not like what he sees.

"What is that?"

"It's a cat scratch."

"You banging a lion tamer?" The doctor conversant on all levels of show business, Frank choosing to ignore the crude, if somewhat
accurate, implication.

"What's going on back there? It feels like someone's doing acupuncture with a rusty nail."

"You've got a nice little infection. When did this happen?"

"Couple of days ago."

"Your own cat?"

"Don't ask."

"Fair enough. I'm going to give you an injection, and do you have a painkiller of choice or is that a stupid question?"

It was a stupid question.

Frank was duly injected and left the office with his own legitimate prescription, with which he would surreptitiously replace
what he'd borrowed from Honey, who had been known to count pills.

Frank drives home pondering whether he has enough good material to fill an entire CD. He knows he won't be able to get a contract
by saying he'll play with an audience for an hour and hope for the best. It occurs to him he may need to freshen his set,
which, other than his riffing-on-the-headlines material, has remained unchanged for ten years. That will require the laborious
process of actually generating new material, which, despite his recent minting of the Kennedy-Jesus-Muhammad-looks-like-Phil-Silvers
bit, has not been flowing of late.

Parking the car in front of his house, Frank reaches into the tin mailbox, removes the contents, and heads up the path to
the front door. Along with three bills, a charity solicitation, and Honey's copy of the
New York Review of Books,
there is a mortgage-payment notice for his place in Playa Perdida, the out-of-the-way Mexican beach town where he had purchased
a cliffside shack. This was seven years ago when, on a coke-fueled trip to Mexico with a bunch of comics looking for pure,
cheap tequila and the ladies who liked it, Frank, in a drunken haze, had inadvertently stumbled into a Day of the Dead festival,
which seemed to consist, at least to his inebriated eyes, of an entire town, men, women, and children, dressed as skeletons,
running around, wailing, cavorting, emitting otherworldly sounds; banshees having touched down on Earth and materialized in
the forms of these temporarily deranged Mexican townspeople. Their bold embracing of death and decay appealed to Frank's morbid
streak. However clean American life appeared to be, however sterile and antiseptic, Frank knew it to be a shimmering illusion
sold to a nation of narcotized consumers who signed on to the fantasy of eternal youth, blind to the skull lurking behind
every polished face. Mexico had it right. Death was nearby; it was with us; it was inescapable. All the Botox in the world
wasn't going to smooth out that wrinkle. Sometime in the middle of that night, while throwing back shots with a taxi driver
who barely spoke a word of English, Frank decided he possessed a deep and abiding love for Mexico's people and culture (if
not it's cannabis, which he found harsh), a love he intended to consummate with the purchase of real estate.

Frank opens the envelope and pulls out the payment slip. A barely perceptible smile dances on his thin lips. When this bill
is sent to the Mexican bank that floated his mortgage, he will own Casa del Bones outright. In his head he hears a mariachi
band play the Clash song "I'm So Bored with the USA."

"Where the fuck is my Vicodin?"

Honey stands in the middle of the living room wearing nothing but jeans so tight they seem to have been Krylonned on. Her
new grapefruit-size breasts are cantilevered over a gym-bunny stomach at a ninety-degree angle as if, having found themselves
incongruously marooned on her slender torso, they are longingly looking for their place of origin. She points these distended
interlopers at Frank, nipples large and angry. "My tits are killing me. The incisions are swollen or something so I open the
fuckin' medicine chest because I think there might be some painkillers in there and the fuckin' Vicodin is gone! Did you take
them?"
J'accuse!

Frank reaches into his pocket and pulls out a prescription bottle, which he presents with a flourish, a pharmaceutical magician
producing a narcotic rabbit.

"Give me that!"

Frank hands her the pills and gets her a glass of water. She pops the painkiller, chasing it with the water, and looks at
the bottle, her mood still querulous and her breasts unmoving.

"How'd you get this?" she demands, knowing something's not kosher.

"I saw Cashman."

"Why?"

"I have a little infection, too."

Infection? That's certainly not the word she wants to hear corning from the man she has slept with exclusively for nearly
five years, entirely faithful to his microbes. And he to hers, she had hoped. Infection smacks of the odious STD family and
the viral mayhem inherent therein; not an area of possibility Honey, clean of body if not pure of mind, is keen to entertain.

"What kind of infection?"

Frank had taken some time to prepare this story. He had tried a few angles that incorporated a house cat, but none were remotely
plausible, and the notion of a squirrel having dropped onto him from a tree would not fly in Los Angeles, where the indigenous
ones move with the studied insouciance of 1950s jazz musicians, so he had had to generate a narrative that did not involve
an animal. Here is what he came up with:

"I didn't want to tell you this because I thought it might upset you." Frank is slightly distracted by the sight of her breasts,
clearly larger and more immobile than Dr. Nasrut Singh had advertised. "By the way, is that their final size?"

"Are they too big?" Honey asks, distractible as a puppy.

"No, but . . . " They are curiously unsexual in their current state, but he can't tell her that since it will only cause more
aggro.