The Royal Family (73 page)

Now we’re getting personal, said Domino.

Yes we are, Smooth gloated. Go ahead. Domino. Tell us what it’s like for you, and what color their ooze is.

Oh, knock it off, Smooth, said Tyler.

You’re always telling me to knock it off. Why don’t
you
knock it off?

Knock what off?

I love it when men fight, said Domino.

I bet you do, said Tyler. And I concede in advance. I don’t have any answers. But Danny boy here knows everything. In my job, you know, I sometimes ask a lot of questions. If the witnesses are able to answer every question, you know that some of what they say isn’t true.

So they fall in love with you sometimes? Smooth pursued, paying no attention to this objection. Indeed, it seemed as if he’d taken complete charge of the conversation by now, not so much overcoming arguments as reducing them to demonstrations of disrespect equivalent to the loud cries of a scattered search party.

Uh, they do, uh huh, replied the blonde with surprising coyness.

And that’s personal?

Uh huh.

Well, my theory is that if you keep saying it’s personal you must be flattered, because otherwise you’d just say straight up that you don’t give a damn whether they love you or not.

Domino laughed. —Maybe so, she said.

Now, that being the case, I think you also would do the nice thing if you were in that Sadducee wife’s situation up in Heaven.

If all those angel husbands pay me first!

I need coffee, said Smooth. I’m falling asleep.

You want a toot? said Domino.

Oh, that’s nice of you. But let’s try this little coffee shop for a minute . . .

I mean, what
ever,
said Domino, irritated.

The Vietnamese coffee shop at Mason and Eddy had lace curtains around the windows so that you could see only the silhouettes of the shoulders inside. Smooth ordered a Vietnamese coffee, jet-black, slow-dripping into a metal cylinder of condensed milk. Tyler chose a can of root beer. —Nothing for me, said Domino. I don’t like these goddamned foreign places. I bet that coffee of yours is full of ground up cockroaches.

At the next table sat a mother with a six-year-old boy.

I’d like to get into that, Smooth said.

Cut it out, Tyler said.

The Queen ran silently in and kissed Tyler on the lips. Smooth got her a chair. She sat beside Tyler, holding his hand. —Hi, Maj, said Domino. I missed you . . .

Smooth craned his head, smiling and winking at the six-year-old, whose mother, desolate about something, sat close-eyed with her head in her hands.

Hello, mister, the child said.

Why, hello there! said Smooth in his most friendly manner. Are you full?

Yeah.

Is your smooth little tummy all
full?

Yeah, said the child shyly.

Now I have a question for you. Do you like to answer questions?

Yeah.

All right then. Here it is. What do you think
happens
to all that food in your stomach? Smooth asked the child in a calm and even tone.

It rolls around and around and around, he said.

And then? said Smooth, leaning forward.

And then when you have to go to the bathroom it comes out and it’s all brown.

Hmm, said Smooth. Basically correct.

Oh, leave him alone, said the Queen.

Now, Maj, what’s really going on? Domino said.

With what?

With you and Henry. By the way, I need some rock. You got any white girl on you, Maj?

Hush your mouth, bitch. Can’t you see we’re in a public place?

Maj, I really need something . . .

The Queen sighed and embraced the blonde, pretending to kiss her while she spat into her mouth. Smooth, who did not use drugs, beamed ironically. Tyler felt a little jealous. Domino clung to the Queen, trembling as she gobbled her saliva down. Finally the Queen pulled away and said: That’s enough.

Thank you, Maj. Now I don’t hurt anymore.

Very tastefully done, Smooth said. Now, Maj, what’s the prophecy?

The Queen pulled the Enemy’s Book out of the pocket of her grubby parka, closed her eyes, opened it, and lowered her dark, scarred little forefinger onto the tiny print. She opened her eyes. But just as she was about to read, the mother at the adjoining table, who had been wandering the cobwebbed corridors of her own despair, leaned forward, her eyes shining, and said: Excuse me, lady, but have you been saved?

Why, how did you know, dear? said the Queen gently.

Well, I saw you have the Book . . . Now that I’m a born-again Christian I just feel so free.

I’m so glad, said the Queen.

Politically I hate so many people; politically I guess I hate almost everyone, so I’m so grateful to God for forcing me to love.

That’s nice, Tyler said.

The way I look at it, blurted Domino, if God is omniscient or however you say it, then when you’re stepping on an ant, God feels what that ant feels. You’re doing that to God.

Weren’t you two ladies kissing just now? the mother said. You’re not sodomites, are you?

Why, no, ma’am, Smooth inserted. Didn’t you hear what I was saying to your little boy? I was specifically warning him against such practices. In this world, you know, you have to beware. Nothing is as it seems.

Is that true? said the mother to her son. Did you say thank you to the nice man?

Thank you, the child said glumly.

And remember my advice, son, said Smooth in his best genially distinguished manner. You know. About
digestion.

The mother inched her chair nearer to the Queen and inquired: Are you politically active?

Well, now, I guess that depends.

I just fell in love with Bob Dole.

Imagine that, said the Queen sarcastically.

I’ve always been a conservative at heart, but it wasn’t until Ronald Reagan became President that I really got politically active. Reagan—well, that man helped me find my roots. I guess I just fell in love with Bob Dole’s smile. I was out there campaigning for him so hard, going from door to door.

Allrightie, the Queen said. Well, ma’am, we all certainly have enjoyed visiting with you, but now we need to do a little prayin.’

What church do you belong to?

First Church of Canaan, Reformed.

I’m not familiar with that church. Well, God bless you.

And watch out for that Mark of Cain, ma’am. Now, Smooth, in answer to your question, I do believe we have a prophecy right down here. Are you ready?

Ready, but pessimistic.

Africa—

Henry, you know that’s my private name.

Sorry, Maj. But I was wondering something. If the prophecy’s bad, what happens if you don’t read it? If we don’t know it and refuse to acknowledge it, then maybe it can’t come true.

This guy’s a motherfuckin’ ostrich, said Domino, and the mother at the next table gasped at the obscenity.

Henry, magic don’t work like that. Well, maybe for some people it can, but not here, not for us.

If I’d done something or said something different, if I’d been somehow nicer or I don’t know what, then maybe I could have prevented Irene’s suicide. The future is—

How will you ever know? The future, well, I only ever seen it come by once. Now just keep quiet, Henry. Don’t say nothing; don’t do nothing. Whatever it says, we don’t have to be scared.

This is starting to give me the creeps, said Domino.

Well, it gave
her
the creeps! laughed the Queen, for the mother, seizing her child by the hand, had risen to run away, casting many a baleful glare.

Smooth opened his mouth wide, snake-flickered his tongue at the woman, and said: This is
America,
and I can look at you if you can look at me.

The woman flushed crimson. Tyler was ashamed of Smooth.

Now then, said the Queen. For the prophecy we got Numbers chapter 13 verse 17, and it says:
Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up into the Negeb yonder, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many . . .
”

Okay, said Tyler. We get the idea, Maj. So the vigs are already sniffing around, or soon will be. But I figure it’s not the end yet, because they doubted God, so He delayed the conquest for forty years.

Well, no parallel is exact, Henry, and I wouldn’t push the issue with prophecy, either. It’s not as if there’s a Negeb Street on a hill in the Castro where somebody’s peeking at
us, see. Let’s all agree that Maj’s finger is inspired. I believe in her. I know all of us do. But numbers don’t always translate—

Why not?

Oh, how the fuck should I know? Maybe because then the Egyptians would hear of it or the trumpets would resound or some dumb thing . . .

I don’t know, Tyler said stubbornly, narrowing his eyes. If this is true, and they’re here to spy us out, then why can’t we go spy
them
out? I’ll do it if you want; I’m expendable . . .

Hee, hee, hee! laughed Smooth. Was that what your sister-in-law thought?

In just the same way that in San Francisco it is often sunnier south of Market Street, so the prostitutes, pimps, thieves and dealers, tiring at last of their own rumors, began to regain their confidence that they could survive the epoch of the vigs. Some hoped to hide and sleep, others to set the streets on fire. Most, of course, remained convinced that nothing would ever happen to disturb their lives. The crazy whore was rapt with optimistic analysis and prophecy, clutching Domino’s sleeve and crying: I know one man who’s bragging that he’s got all the money in the world. And he’s known for going to coffee shops to suck the nipples of Oriental girls for at least half an hour. And he—but Domino wrinkled her nose and said: Shut up, you crazy old bug.

All the whores had faith. If something happened, they could look after themselves. Later, when everything was over, it would seem in retrospect that those last few months were easier and more pleasant than any other time they could remember. Drugs were cheap and dates were plentiful. They loved their Queen, of course, but without her, life wouldn’t be much different. Their lives possessed a certain wholeness now; they couldn’t imagine that the circle might ever be broken. But on a rainy night not long after that long conversation in the Vietnamese restaurant, the Queen, who on the streets and in warehouses, ghost factories, and crack hotels usually seemed to be as imperially at home as a Korean wife in that household command center, the kitchen, now sat staring moodily into the baby food jar which comprised the bowl of her crack pipe. Tyler was sitting at her feet watching her while big drops rang against the warehouse roof in a fusillade and she sighed and began to pick out bits of toilet paper from the turbid water inside the jar. —Any goldfish swimming around in there? he asked, but she only smiled faintly. Suddenly she dashed the liquid out on the concrete floor. He saw matchheads, a rust-brown powder, a dead ant.

Henry, I want you to do something for me, she said.

All right, he said.

I want you to go to Vegas and find out what that Brady man’s up to. I got a bad feeling. I got a real bad feeling.

Tyler smiled sadly, unable to reply. He was making a mess of a surveillance job he really couldn’t afford to make a mess of—another potentially lucrative infidelity case in Alameda, which meant that he could have padded hours and mileage; he already had the husband nailed; but the wife wanted photographs and she wanted them now. So much for that client. Anxiety localized itself in his stomach, then metastasized to his heart, and his hands began to sweat. He longed to please the Queen by doing something useful for
her, and he also knew that no human being could really do anything useful for her. He wanted Brady’s venture to be innocuous, and he already knew it wasn’t. He wondered how difficult it would be. He was only Henry Tyler; he didn’t have what it took. He felt that he would honestly do more good by staying out of this and letting the Queen go, but if he did, then Irene’s skeleton would be sitting on his face again at night, pissing ants and spiders into his mouth. He knew that no matter what happened he would do the wrong thing. Suspended above his bottomless future, he hung clinging miserably to a stretching rope. He almost couldn’t bear it. His breastbone ached. Let it be cancer, he thought. Then at least it will be over. But he wanted to live. He wanted to be fulfilled. It was all hopeless.

I know what you’re thinkin’, child, said his Queen who loved him. It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.

Tyler knelt before her and sobbed.

Just as the tall man’s face gradually lightened from a deep black-brown upon the crown of his shaved head to fresh ocher pits just above his eyes, so the sky, too, dimmed down its darkness, then began to flush in parts. The Queen yawned. Dawn was coming.