The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (2 page)

Things began to change some when the difference of opinion between the States began. New Orleans was occupied by a Northern army under the command of one Major General Benjamin F. Butler, also referred to as “Beast” or “Spoons.” You don’t come by handles like that by dancing with the old ladies at church socials. It seems some of Spoon’s Yankee boys got slapped around in the streets by some southern belles on account of their practice of making free and loose with the ladies’ household goods. Apparently Spoons came to the conclusion that the French language was responsible for this distinctly un-American behavior, so he abolished it. Of course, you can’t stop people from speaking their own language altogether, but he did manage to put something of a dent in it. It never fully recovered, and the issue of what language was going to be spoken in New Orleans had been by and large, if not amicably, resolved.

In 1872, just to show there were no hard feelings about all that chaining-people-together business, P. B. S. Pinchback, a man of African descent—well, African-ish, or one-eighth to be exact—was elected Governor of Louisiana. But it seems that even one-eighth was just too much for the white folks, and he even had some Injun blood in him too, which was never gonna fly. So Jim Crow and his pal Mr. Segregation came to town and stayed until the sixties, until the Civil Rights Movement kicked their asses the hell out, and Norman Rockwell got to paint little Ruby Bridges going to school with the white kids. It’s a pretty picture.

Later in the decade, New Orleans started to get outmuscled by the other big dogs in the gulf, and the saints went marching out. New Orleans started to drift backward, back toward its days as a sleepy backwater. The tourists kept it alive. Mardi Gras, Preservation Hall, the French Quarter, lies and legends, plastic voodoo, plastic beads, watered-down hurricanes, imported oysters, Dr. John, hammered varsity jocks puking on the corners and tipsy cheerleaders flashing their tits from the ornate balconies, Mr. and Mrs. Buttcleft Wyoming picking their way through streets filled with winos and mule shit, trying to get to the heart of the night, not realizing that it doesn’t have one. But, in its own way, that’s a pretty picture too.

The real deal wasn’t so pretty, and never is. There is no Mr. Bluebird on your shoulder, in New Orleans or anywhere else. There is no Big Easy, and there never was. It’s just that in New Orleans, at certain times of the day, in certain kinds of light, under certain kinds of sky, or in the hot nights when the heady heavy heavenly smell of blooms is in the air, and the moon looks down like the eye of Yahweh, and the ghost of Buddy Bolden can be heard blowing his golden horn from across the levee, it seems like there might be.

But it’s an illusion. And it’s also a good place to start, because that’s what this story is really about: illusion.

Chapter 1

De Villiers Brooke was stringing it out. Cranking up the tension. He knew he wasn’t going to miss, and this other schmuck knew it too. Not only was he going to sink it, but he was also going to send in a teaser and make the smug bastard suffer. The supercilious little prick in his pink sweater had been leading all the way around until this last hole.
Well, let’s hear some puerile smart-mouth remark now, pal.
It was a little over three feet, and dead straight. The green was as soft and smooth as a shaven pussy. Just one little gentle tap, dead center, and it was twenty grand. He could already feel the comforting bulge of the roll in his back pocket. A lot of people would get nervous in a situation like this, maybe choke and blow the putt. But De Villiers Brooke wasn’t one of them. He was the ice man, the king of chill, and the captain of cool. Nervous wasn’t in his repertoire, and the only choking that was going to get done was by the bitch who’d be sucking on his meat in about a half hour’s time.

He knelt down and removed an imaginary piece of leaf from the pristine grass. He felt the schmuck fidgeting, impatient, annoyed with his playacting. He smiled. He closed his eyes and mentally performed the shot. Sports psychology one-oh-one. Positive reinforcement. He felt the corrugated rubberized grip, cupped in his hands with exactly the right pressure, and visualized the perfect metronomic swing of the putter: a slow, economic movement with precisely the right amount of momentum. In his mind he heard the ever-so-gentle
puck
as the putter’s sweet spot kissed the ball, and he saw the ball slowly roll straight and true toward the hole. He saw it pause tantalizingly on the lip of the cup, and heard the schmuck draw a breath. He saw El Schmucko’s knuckles whiten and his nails dig into the palms of his hands. Then he saw the ball teeter over the edge and plop into the cup with that unmistakable rattle. He opened his eyes. The moment was perfect. The tension was absolute. The schmuck was holding his breath. Even the birds had stopped singing. De Villiers Brooke drew back his putter just the right amount and sent it on its perfectly weighted, slow, steady trajectory toward the ball.

His cell phone rang. It was programmed to play the opening guitar phrase of “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz.

De Villiers Brooke jumped. The shanked shot wobbled toward the hole, bobbled, rolled tantalizingly round the rim, and then, according to the immutable laws of gravity and momentum, spun out of the cup, rolled across the green, and bumped to a halt against the toe of the schmuck’s three-hundred-dollar Puma Ferrari golf shoe.

The captain of cool went apeshit.

He wrenched the phone from his pocket and glared at the screen, his eyes bulging. “YOU FAT RUSSIAN SCUMBAG. YOU JUST COST ME TWENTY GRAND. I WAS PLAYING GOLF. PEOPLE DON’T CALL PEOPLE WHO ARE PLAYING FUCKING GOLF.”

He glared at the schmuck, who was tittering with his gloved hand across his mouth.

“
I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FART HOW YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW I WAS PLAYING GOLF. JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE ANY GOLF COURSES IN THAT FROZEN COMMIE SHITHOLE YOU COME FROM DOESN’T MEAN WE DON’T.”

The schmuck abandoned all pretense of hiding his mirth and giggled openly as De Villiers Brooke listened again.

“
I’LL TELL YOU WHAT. THE DEAL IS OFF. GET IT? ‘OFF’ AS IN ‘FUCK OFF.’”

The schmuck could hear somebody shouting at the other end of the connection.

“
YOU WHAT? YOU THINK YOU CAN THREATEN ME? I’LL FEED YOUR STINKING BALLS TO MY FUCKING PIGS.”

De Villiers Brooke snapped the phone shut and flung it into the bottom of his golf bag.

As soon as the words, “Well, I guess that’s why you’re supposed to turn your cell phone off on the golf course,” had left his mouth, the schmuck realized he had committed a grave error of judgment. He started to back away across the green as De Villiers Brooke advanced upon him, brandishing a three wood, with a look on his face that said he wasn’t about to demonstrate how to improve his swing. The schmuck backed up against his own golf bag, tripped over it, and went down. He closed his eyes in terror as De Villiers Brooke raised the club high over his head in both hands.

Because the schmuck had his eyes shut tight, he did not see the back of De Villiers Brooke’s skull explode, nor the look of extreme surprise on his face as a 175 gr. 7.62 NATO projectile pierced his forehead traveling at 790 meters per second and delivered him to the big clubhouse in the sky.

Nor did the schmuck see, even after he opened his eyes—because they were just over three quarters of a mile away, on a tree-lined ridge overlooking the course—two men, one corpulent to a prodigious degree, and the other borderline emaciated, chatting amiably as they packed away their Dragunov sniper rifle and paraphernalia.

Neither, obviously, could he hear when the fat one said to the thin one, “How’s that for a fucking hole in one?”

***

Monsoon Parker cut a solitary and forlorn figure as he stared disconsolately into his glass of beer. He was never a big man, but he seemed even smaller than usual, diminished, as if the soul-sapping heartbreaking disappointments that life kept feeding him were sucking him dry and actually physically shrinking him. Everyone got dealt a shit hand every now and then, but in Monsoon’s case the Queen of Fortune was dealing seconds from a stacked deck, with an ace up her sleeve and the jack of hearts up her snatch just for good measure.

Monsoon studied his glass. Was it half empty or half full? What kind of candy-ass pseudo-psychology bullshit was that? Half of it was fucking gone! Of course it was half fucking empty. What kind of brainless optimistic moron sits smiling at the dregs of life and says, “Ooh, look. There’s still some left. Oh, goody.” Any prick who thought like that shouldn’t be allowed to drink beer in the first place.

Even though Monsoon knew with absolute certainty that his pockets were empty, the feeble ember of hope that smoldered in his brain refused to be extinguished completely. On the off-chance that a wormhole had opened into a dimension where things weren’t so tight, and a couple of bucks had spontaneously materialized in his bin, he ran his fingers through his coat and trousers, delicately, as if he were trying to pick his own pocket. The wormholes had taken the afternoon off. Monsoon drained his glass and looked at the bartender.

“
Hey, Squint, what’s the chances of one on the house, for old times’ sake?”

Squint twisted his features into the expression he used when he wanted people to think he was smiling. “Same as the chances of me winnin’ the Indy 500 in a fuckin’ milk float, numbnuts.”

“
That good, huh?”

Squint shrugged as Monsoon headed for the head. At least taking a dump was free. Monsoon relieved himself of his burden and reached for the roll. It was empty.

“
Yep. That just about sums it up,” he said aloud to the heedless tiles and graffiti. He turned his face to the ceiling and looked beyond it to Olympus, where the gods were falling about, spilling the ambrosia from their golden chalices as they pissed themselves laughing.

“
So this is it, boys, hey?” he continued. “This is how my hand plays out. Stuck in a stinking crapper in a third-rate lowlife gin joint, with a shitty ass and not even a dollar bill to wipe it with.”

Outside, a door opened and a breeze blew. Monsoon heard a scraping noise and looked down to see the corner of a newspaper flutter in from the next stall. He looked back up to the ceiling with a curious expression on his face. He tore out a page and began to fold it. As he did so, an advertisement caught his eye. He unfolded the page and read:

Do you look like somebody famous? Want to make one hundred dollars a day, plus tips? Familiar Faces Pro Celebrity Lookalike Caddy Agency hiring today. No appointment necessary. If you think you fit the bill, stop by Suite 226 at the Bellagio, anytime from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. All this week.

Monsoon gave the ceiling another peculiar stare. As he walked out past Squint he was laughing.

“
What’s so funny, ace?”

“
The thought that I just nearly wiped my ass with a hundred bucks.”

***

After his last experience in Louisiana, Crispin—who was back to being Crispin Capricorn again, after he made the shocking discovery that Ned Jelly was actually a brand of hemorrhoid cream, marketed by Bushranger Pharmaceuticals, and could be found on every chemist’s shelf in Australia, right next to Mad Dog Morgan crotch rot relief balm—was taking no chances. Asia saw him approach over the rim of her glass of chilled Chianti, which she was enjoying immensely, and she immediately sprayed the tabletop. The waiter who had just wiped it clean was none too pleased.

“
And what, exactly, are you giggling at, madam?” Crispin said as he jimmied his buttocks into the faux-wicker chair.

“
Crispin. We’re going to America. The USA. We’re not off to the Congo for fuck’s sake.”

“
I’d watch that tongue if I were you, missy. We’ve been in Australia too long.” Crispin eyeballed the men gathered at the bar to make sure that everyone had received and understood the message.

“
Too fuckin’ right, mate. ’Bout time you fucked off, I reckon,” one of them said.

Even though they were in a busy departure lounge at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport and not in a bar full of ockers on Manly waterfront, Crispin had lived in Australia long enough to be aware that the consequences of getting into a contretemps with a group of Australian men with a few beers inside them were likely to be of a physical nature, so he imperiously ignored the laughter and turned his attention back to Asia.

“
I assume it is my mode of attire that is causing you so much mirth.”

“
Crispin. You look like an extra in a Clark Gable movie.”