Drawing Dead (35 page)

She leapt off the bar stool and sashayed to the door. Gave a mammoth hug to a small man in a fedora and a long black coat.

Juan? I asked Lucinda.

Delgado, she said. The Big Cheese.

Delgado?

The one and only.

My, my, I said. I’ve heard of him.

Who hasn’t?

Can you introduce me?

I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. He takes a personal interest in the customers.

As if on cue, Xena motioned me to come around the bar, to the far corner, where Juan was taking a seat in a large plush vermilion chair. I waved a couple of fingers at her. I needed a minute to fortify myself.

Double Dewar’s on the rocks, I said to Lucinda.

She gave me a wry smile. Poured the beverage. An expert twist of the wrist.

I drank it down.

One more, I said. For the road.

She already had the bottle poised.

I took my glass and sauntered over to the maestro’s corner. In the time it had taken me to down the first scotch, a small coterie of sycophants had assembled. None of them had quite the presence of Xena, but, at least as far as I could make out in the dimness, they each had their own thing going. A square-shouldered blonde in a skintight silver body stocking. A slim and sophisticated number in a thirties gangster-style pleated suit. A tiny young thing in shredded denim, with a shaved head, an insolent air and various metal objects incising her flesh in awkward places.

There was another fish tank, floating behind the human tableau, even larger than the one behind the bar. Containing bigger beasts. Predominantly blue and orange again. But some were black. An enormous manta ray, slowly propelling itself with graceful swings of its gigantic wings. Like an aquatic eagle in slow motion. I tried to take it all in. It came in flashes. The black and blue, and orange, ocean. Black eyes and champagne. Sideways glances. Faint but discernible duplicity. An oval face. A hint of Asian blood.

The blonde took Delgado’s coat. The tiny shredded one took his hat. They hung them on a coatrack. It appeared to be made of bones. Whose or what’s, I couldn’t tell.

As I approached the cabal, Xena rushed to me, flung a giant paw around my shoulder, guiding me, with disconcerting force, to my audience with The Delgado.

The man was hairless as an egg. Not so much as a stray strand of eyebrow. And there was no mistaking the pink glitter in the eyes. The translucent pallor. Albino, for sure.

No wonder there weren’t any lights in the place.

The pink eyes fixed on mine.

His head was a perfectly smooth dome. His lips were full, just short of African. He held an ornate walking stick in his left hand. The power of the man was palpable. It reeked of New Orleans.

I was quickly getting the picture.

Juan, said Xena, I’d like you to meet my new wife.

I looked behind me. No one there. Who could she be referring to?

Rick, she said, this is Juan.

Oh, fuck.

Xena laughed, slapped my back. Nearly pitched me forward onto the floor. A position in which I did not want to find myself. Not on my first introduction to His Hairlessness.

But I got it. It was a joke. Har har.

I tried to think of something clever to say.

I failed.

Pleased to meet you, I ended up saying, as smoothly as I could.

Rick, said Juan. The pleasure is mine, I assure you.

His voice was soft. It exhibited the tranquility of utter assurance. Like that of a born-again zealot.

Have a seat, he said.

Don’t mind if I do, I replied, sinking into the sofa.

The sycophants were jockeying for the best places around Delgado. Looking at me. A mixture of curiosity and resentment. Not fond of strangers, I was guessing. Potential competition for attention from His Whiteness.

I take a personal interest in my guests, said Juan.

I appreciate that, I said.

So, what brings you to us?

I wasn’t sure about this guy. The whole scene. I figured I’d get to it slowly. Or maybe not at all.

I’d heard it was an interesting place, I said.

He chuckled, as though I’d said something clever. He lifted his cane. Polished the silver head with his left hand.

Indeed it is, he said. Isn’t it?

He addressed the question to the cabal. They all indicated their assent. Yes, boss, it sure be interesting.

Just what kind of interesting were you interested in? he asked me.

I don’t know, I said. I’m a writer, you see. I like to see things, soak them up. Use them later.

That’s funny, said Juan. So do I.

You’re a writer, too?

No.

Oh.

The tiny black-eyed one giggled.

Delgado rapped his stick on the floor. They all fell quiet.

No, he said. I speak as a whore.

Pardon me?

I speak as a whore, he repeated.

Funny, I said. You look more like a pimp.

A shocked silence fell upon the minions.

Delgado stopped, stared at me. His eyes were hard and red and white. His large pale lips pursed.

Damn it, I thought to myself, why can’t I keep my fucking mouth shut? It’s one thing if it costs you your job. But this guy. He looks quite capable of perpetrating an act of decapitation. Or worse.

But he laughed.

Not many white guys have the nerve to talk to me like that, he said.

This new opening was almost irresistible. The guy was whiter than a baby beluga. A hell of a lot whiter than me, anyway. Black albino, it seemed. That’s major fucking weird, I thought. But I wasn’t about to say so. I’d already taken enough chances.

I just smiled.

Okay, he said. You are?

Name’s Redman, I said.

Actually, he said with a chuckle, I knew that, Rick.

So much for my cover. I mean, it could have been a bluff. But it didn’t read like one. I figured I had to play it straight.

I’m just here to, ah, get something. For Evgeny. I don’t normally dress this way. I needed to get through the door.

He didn’t laugh out loud.

I respected that.

I might be able to help you, he said.

I was hoping you would.

Come, he said. Follow Diamond.

Diamond turned out to be the one in the gangster suit. Thin, lithe and goddamn irresistible. If I was being set up, it was going to work. There was nothing I could do about it. The off chance that this was legit, that, better yet, there was the slightest possibility I could have a few minutes of guilt-free passion with this utterly tricked-out object, was more than enough to counterbalance the risk. Whatever risk there was. Which was major, big-time, sick, stupid risk.

My consolation, my rationalization, was, what the hell would they want to do anything to me for, anyway? I was just the water boy.

I
WOKE UP SLOWLY
. Very slowly. I needed water. For what seemed like hours I subsisted in a half-dream place. There were people feeding me dry things. Things that made the thirst worse. I was grasping for a hose, just out of reach. I desperately needed it. My mouth felt like sand. A whole beachful of sand. Sand and autumn leaves. The sand poured out of my mouth, onto my bare chest. It congealed there, turned color. Orange and red and fuchsia. It crawled along my flesh. Entwined around my wrists, my ankles. Tightened. Inserted small shards of glass. Made me bleed. I wanted to scream. But my mouth was full of sand and dead leaves.

My eyes cleared a bit. There was a gray and green light coming from somewhere, murky and intermittent. There was a locker room smell. Only worse. It had a funky edge. I could taste it, or something else, in the back of my throat.

That wasn’t really the problem, though.

The real problem was the iron shackles binding my wrists and ankles. I was attached, it seemed, to some kind of metal contraption
that held me in a rather unnatural position, head below my feet. Not only that, but, to all appearances, I was completely naked. In fact, if the numerous aches and throbs that shot through me at random intervals were anything to go by, I was not only shackled, not only naked, but shackled, naked, bruised and battered. I felt a dull ache in the general area of my prostate. A sharp throb when I tried to flex my right wrist. My lips felt swollen. My tongue was drier than a gecko’s tail.

All of which was not good.

The situation reeked of not-goodness.

For some reason the phrase

kept running through my head. I pondered what it meant.

I had no idea.

I heard a shuffling sound. Or maybe it was a rustling sound. Either way, it scared the hell out of me. It was bad enough that I was shackled, naked, bruised and battered. I didn’t particularly want the perpetrator of all this to appear, ready to resume whatever it was that got me in this state. Or maybe it wasn’t the perpetrator. But I was not at all sure the alternative would be better. If not the perpetrator, an audience? I wasn’t sure I wanted that either. At all.

Foolish, I thought, my brain slowly coming around to the notion that I was awake, or something like it. That this … situation … as awful as it was, was not a dream. That I was not only shackled, naked, bruised and battered, but utterly confused. Drugged. Or something. Had been drugged. Or maybe just hung over. Whatever it was, it was making me worry about some pretty tangential issues. Given the circumstances.

Call out, I thought. Call for help.

I restrained myself. God knows what monstrous feet might be doing the shuffling. What nasty wings the rustling.

But then, I pondered, could my situation get worse? Well, yes. But if it was going to get worse, it was going to get worse anyway. So, I thought, in a certain sense, it could only get better.

I always knew that freshman logic course would come in handy some day.

I called out.

It came out more like a gargle.

A very, very dry gargle.

The shuffling and rustling stopped.

It didn’t respond.

This was not good.

The shuffling started again. Just the shuffling. Not the rustling. The shuffling went on for a while. Too long, for my taste. It was coming from the left. I turned my head. I turned it an inch. Something was preventing me from turning it any more.

The shuffler appeared. It was carrying a broom. Hence the rustling, I deduced. It hadn’t been rustling. More like swishing. Broom swishing. I thought myself very clever.

It was wearing overalls. And a vacant expression. A very, very vacant expression.

I was hoping the expression was a symptom of intellectual deficit, and not depraved indifference.

I cleared my throat.

He didn’t move.

I wonder if you wouldn’t mind, I said as politely as I could, helping me out of this, uh, contraption.

He didn’t move.

Please? I said.

He looked at the ground. He whisked the broom back and forth.

Apparently he had found some dirt.

I cleared my throat again.

Sir? I asked.

My voice was recovering a semblance of its former resonance.

He looked up.

Do you speak English? I asked.

His expression didn’t change.

Man, this was one tough interview.

Maybe he was deaf.

I screwed up my face. I rattled the shackles. Despite my desperation, I felt more than faintly ridiculous. I mean terrified. Terrified and ridiculous. What I mean to say is, I’m sympathetic to the intellectually challenged and all, but what kind of moron needs a pantomime show to tell him a naked guy shackled to a metal contraption might want to get the hell out of it?

You want to get off of that thing? he asked.

He asked it in a calm, strangely stilted, high-pitched voice.

I took a moment to recover from the shock. Figured the best immediate strategy was to be polite.

Later, I could beat the crap out of him.

I certainly would, I said, but I can’t seem to manage the task alone. Might you give me a hand?

Sure, he said in the same flat tone.

As though it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

He came on over. I flinched. Still half expecting the worst.

But it was fine. He undid the restraints. He did it slowly, deliberately. Then he shuffled back to his broom. Back into the other room. The swishing started again.

I slowly crawled off the contraption. It took some time. I was half upside down. Every joint was stiff. Tiny twisted daggers were being tapped artfully into locations carefully selected for maximum pain.

Once I’d finally stumbled to the ground, I looked at my former captor. It was artfully designed. Bolted to the floor. Painted red. Held together with thick black leather bands. The leather old and cracked. The red paint chipped and weathered. Clearly, it had seen a lot of use.

The aches and pains kept insisting on my attention. I tried to stretch. My lower back seized up. I bent over. I looked at my ankles. Red and raw. Matched the wrists. Jesus. I’d have to avoid rolling up my sleeves for a few days.

Speaking of which, I suddenly recalled, I had no sleeves. Nor a shirt to hang them off. Nor any other stitch of clothing.

This was going to be a problem.

I tried to look around. It was hard to move my neck. I turned my whole body to survey the joint.

The place was cracked and crazed with age and neglect. The metal devices, of which my former captor was but one, were sad and lonely in the gray light of morning. I vaguely recalled an air of danger and foreboding from the night before. That was all gone. Now it just looked kind of pathetic.

The gray light of morning.

I was thirsty as a salt lick.

I went next door to visit my new best friend.

He was sweeping the floor.

Uh, listen, I said, you wouldn’t happen to know where my clothes are, would you?

He stared at me blankly.

This no longer surprised me. I was getting to know the guy.

No, he said in his flat soprano.

It hit me. Autism. He was autistic. Asperger’s, wasn’t it? The one where you can hold a job? You might even be good at something? He seemed to be pretty good at sweeping.