Leper Tango (13 page)

Like Bosch `s miser. At the brink of death and still reaching for the dish of gold pieces held out by the devil. Or like me, reaching out for a cunt. Throwing away a lifetime's effort for an afternoon
pipe
at discount. Or generally doing what men are good at, which is passively buying into a confidence game, no matter how cheap. My thought was interrupted by John Player, as he pushed his recording equipment into a grey, metal filing cabinet pull-out drawer.

“ Would you consider taking me back with you? I don't need to do this anymore.”

“I'll send you a postcard.”

It was bad enough being inside my own brain without dragging another piece of spiritual flotsam across the ocean to where I was going.

IX

Practicing law is like flying an airplane, or fighting a war. Not to be done by half. Whether you have one file or six hundred, contingent liability and professional negligence is always lurking round the next corner. You should never, ever dabble. Dabbling brings you within the microscopic focus of the Law Societies. Creaky-wheeled bodies. Right up there with the revenue authorities under the “to be avoided at all costs” rubric. If they get spokes into your wheels, you can sink into a permanent mire. It's one of the reasons I stuck to personal injur y — no one likes plaintiff counsel, but the equation is simple enough to work out. Cover the costs up front, hit the client with a 30% contingency. If you take on twenty claims in a year, eight were bogus, eight could be settled out of court, if you played the jury card properly, and knew how to get them crying
at the injustice of it all
, while convincing the client it was a crapshoot, you had a couple of big winners per annum, and year in year out, once you got rolling, three to four million easy. To sum up, the principles of the stock market applied to human suffering.

Then, there's the dog files, and the worst of the dog files involved clients who were suing on principle. Holly Reichman had accidentally had both ovaries removed when she was slated for a caesarian, by a hatchet man, an Armenian named Masbourian, another Bourque referral. She was a tricky case, not dog file
a priori.
Even had PR value, page two item in the daily press.
Doctor X stole my vagina! A horribly true tale of menopause at age twenty-nine
! On the downside, Holly was married to Isaac Reichman, Hassidic Jew, which is neither here nor there, except she'd already had ten kids. So, I won the case, which made Isaac happy, and more importantly satisfied Holly's jap vanity. But bringing in a medical expert from the Mayo to prove a woman's uterus was cut out by a surgeon as opposed to atrophying all on its own due to Isaac's wish to break post-modern records for procreation is a costly proposition. In short, damages were nominal, which made it any self-respecting law yer's nightmare — a win on principle. All the case law supported us on the merits, but I couldn't dig up anything decent on quantum. And for any of you unfamiliar with the dour propensities of Scottish-Canadian judges, let it be known that some part of their brain just doesn't compute the notion of punitive damages.

On the winning side of the balance sheet, Kimberly Sutherland was a quad in a halo brace who had been training for a try-out with the Olympic f igure skating team. Two million settlement, and probably worth double that. Plus, Paris was calling again, and the New World looked like a black and white universe compared to the cit y of light. It was time for some creative accounting. In my books, it was a case for natural justice
134
D
AVID
M
AC
K
INNON

à la Franck Robinson
, which involved a classic squeeze of two ends against the middle, and me having to use large chunks of Kimberly Sutherland's award to pay off disbursements in the Holly Reichman case. It looked bullet-proof at the time, but I hadn't factored Spike Nussbaum into the equation.

When someone goes to see a lawyer, it's usually the worst day of their life. So, on the odds alone, there were bound to be dog files and clients like Spike Nussbaum. Fifteen per cent of clients were write offs. Loss column. The Spikes were another category, as hard to factor as the odds of running into a psychopath in a bowling alley, or being born with six toes. Couldn't be quantified. But shit attracts flies, so sooner or later you have to deal with them.

Four times that particular morning, I'd watched Spike Nussbaum's number flash up on call display. By this time, I only called in temps for any secretarial work, so I was stuck with answering the phone myself. Which put me in the direct line of fire.

“Robinson.”

“Mr Robinson, sir? Spike Nussbaum.”

Nussbaum was a Vietnam veteran, the type who would even call you sir just prior to strangling you.

“Mr Robinson, sir, I really need to talk to you. Sir.”

“By all means, talk, Mr Nussbaum. You have two minutes. What can I do for you?”

“What I have to say needs to be said in person. Sir.”

“I'm afraid that just wouldn't be possible. I'm on a four week trial right now.”

“Sir, during my spare time, when I'm not taking care of Kimberly, I've been doing some research. Since you never actually sent us a copy of the judgment, I went down to the courthouse and picked up a copy.” “Very enterprising of you, Spike. If I were a betting man, I'd say you have a future.”

“Sir, it says here that we were awarded two million dollars. Sir. Plus compound interest since the date of service of the writ.”

“I don't mind saying the jury appreciated my arguments, Spike.”

“How come then, Sir, we only got 350 clicks at the end of the day.”

“Because, Spike, at the end of the day, that's all there was left.”

“But, it says two million dollars!”

“After six months of applications, discoveries, and, don't quote me on this, but there were dilatory tactics on the part of defence counsel which bordered on the unethical. And, as you well know, we had expert witnesses brought in from the outside. It's the unfortunate, dreadful procedural side of
the system
, Spike, but it's not my job to remedy that.”

All that to say, the city was drawing me back again, its gravitational pull increasing in direct proportion to my boredom. I picked up the phone and dialled international. The voice that responded was Joel, Wee Willie's Lyonnais chef, whose reputation was enhanced by rumours that he had tortured men during the Algerian mess.

“
Wee Willies, bonjour
.”

“Joel? Franck Robinson here.”

“Franck, you old devil! When do we see you again?!”

“What's on special today, Joel?”

“
Cèpes à la Bordelaise. Croûtes Comtoises aux Morilles
.

Come back and join us. We'll party again, Franck!”

“I'll be there tomorrow. Make sure the place is crawl-

ing with slatterns, Joel.”

P
ART
II

Chambre 52, Hotel du Quai Voltaire

Changed locales, Hervé. One step ahead of the law, as they say. Further to my last missive, check Account 332-555 672. And, Hervé, give me a break, and drop the talk on trust accounts and fiduciary duty, otherwise no more phone calls. I don't depend on you for cash, you depend on me for enterta inment. Besides, this is
force majeure
. Remember Nuremberg, Hervé. I was just following orders. Your orders are: Transfer the funds. Call up Sam Harder, you remember that wine
-
soaked lunch we had a few years back at Club St-Denis. If he gets antsy, cook up a power of attorney. Do whatever it takes. I'm counting on you.

Haven't quite decided what to do next, but somebody should end up dead to punctuate this little tale in an appropriate manner. Or who knows, maybe everything will turn out, ha ha. Just kidding, only a bullet in the head is going to loop this baby out. In the meantime, thought I might continue my little journal of the john, fully annotated version, concerning my life, such as it is. A Darwinian log-book of sorts. For your personal enjoyment. Top ten popular myths about the john. The food we eat. How to become a john. Favourite john fashions. Why our mothers still love us.

I am writing this missive from a haunt known as the
Café Byzantin
which is frequented by the scum of the universe — johns, pedophiles, rapists, abortionists and pimps — the other human debris slouched in various positions at the bar and in the stalls of
Café Byzantin
. Each of them pouring Leffes and Pastis down their gullets, and each one of them probably with a variation to tell on my own theme.

None of us actually chose this life. We drifted into it, because we didn't feel enough drive on our way to the initial destination. It was a question of vitality. A choice between decadence and ethics. Those from the world referred to as normal, or day-to-day or moral fail to fathom why certain women are willing to step out on St-Denis and suck strange men's cocks, day in and out, and why certain strange men are willing to pay to have their cocks (the instrument of life!!) sucked, or have their life-giving jism dribble out uselessly down the diseased, gelatinous thighs or scarred faces of women who have performed the same task dozens of times the same day with men of
unspeakably foul habit
.

So fitting, that last phrase, Hervé. Don't you see what's happened here, Hervé? I have committed the ultimate sin. Not whoring, not stealing from the trust funds of quadriplegics, not avoiding child support payments. That's nickel and dime shit. No, my true sin is identifying myself as
part of an oppressed class
. But, let me continue my guided tour of the gutters of
rue St-Denis
, the septic tank of the Western world.

I

The bed was in the “green room,” on the first floor, overlooking
rue des Martyrs
. I looked out the window at a
boucherie chevaline
on the opposite side of the street. Workers standing outside of a deliver y truck, in blood-soaked aprons, hauling down horse carcasses. I looked back inside the room. Alena squatting over the bidet, douching her cunt with a lime-green rectangular terry-towel, watching me. Flashing what she called her smile
troublant
. Then turning it off.

“That's good. Where'd you learn that?” “What?” she said, her lips pouting.

“The smile.”

“I imagine a schoolgirl caught masturbating. It is part of my repertoire. To slow the men down. Looking is free. But then, nothing more until
cash
.”

She took a couple more dabs at her cunt with the towel.

“I have a gift, mister Franck. I can make any man stop.

I am like a disease.” “You should have gone into sales.” “To sell what. Fish?”

She folded the towel and placed it back on a rack at the edge of a small sink. Turned around, a cigarette now in her mouth.

“Light my cigarette. If you are a gentleman.” That word again.
Gentleman.

“I have to make my monthly visit to the Commissariat today. To regularise my taxes.”

“You pay taxes?”

“
Pauvre con
,” she pronounced, “of course. I am
profes
sion liberale
. Look.”

She reached into her purse, pulled out a sheet of paper, neatly folded into four. An excerpt from the Registre de Commerce de Paris
, identifying her as a
péripaticienne
.

“Social benefits, tenants tax, property tax, the crèche, the audiovisual tax, the value-added tax. I'm telling you, Franck, nine thousand tonnes of paper. Nine thousand.

And what ever is left goes to Yannick. But, inspecteur Chanvre, the assistant prefect, is a customer. He shows me how to organize my paper work.
Donnant, donnant.

C'est cool.
”

Everything about Alena suggested sloth. She moved at crawl-speed. Her voice dripped out in languid streams.

As if she had been waiting for a decade or so for the right person to come or the right thing to happen, then figured out that stagnation was her natural state. I liked her style, and her way of reducing fucking to routine, marinated in indifference. With A lena, you weren't really there. She had to show up for work; otherwise she wouldn't eat. She had to wiggle her ass, because that got your dick hard, and if your dick was hard, she might squeeze an extra couple hundred francs for the promise of something never really delivered upon. And she needed that cash, for cigarettes, to feed her kid, for whatever. But the client, although essential, was interchangeable, fungible. Like a Ken doll coming off the assembly line. But with venereal disease, or a grudge against his mother, or nothing to do before attending a Church meeting. Or the occasional brutes. Savage, thick-skinned and thick-headed. The type that see women as slabs of meat or punching bags. The kind that made it nice to have a pimp close by.

“Franck, would you accompany me?” “Sure, no problem.”

Maybe I'm not normal, but to me, being invited by a whore to walk down the street during daylight hours meant something. Kind of an acknowledgement that I was now part of Alena's world. More than that. It was an honour. Which shows that I was either very stupid, or I adapted well to different environments.

We walked together through the
Faubourg Montmartre
towards the St-Denis post office. Just after turning off
Réaumur
, we stopped for a moment to watch Pascal, an oversized brute with a squashed nose and quick hands, who was running a dice game. His straightman, Abdul, stood at the other side of the collapsible card table used for their operations. Another crony wearing an amused smirk, watching the mark being played out, who that afternoon was a small Portuguese man wearing an oversized bowler hat which left only a brushy moustache and a stubbly chin visible.

Abdul was in phase two of the sting operation, staring into Pascal's eyes, as if he were his father, or as if he were being handed inside information by the vice-chairman of the stock exchange just prior to a public offering of telecom shares. Abdul stared and then stared some more, clutching a handful of hundred franc notes in his left hand, struggling to keep them from jumping onto the table.

“What do you mean, it's easy?” he asked, his eyes bulging, incredulous. “I will kill you if you lie.” This followed by a long theatrical pause.

“But is it possible, are you really the one I have been waiting for, the man in the dream?”

Abdul inched back towards the table as if he were being pulled back by an invisible leash.

“Please, kind man, you suck the marrow from my bones and the will from my spirit, but speak the truth, please, just this once, oh kind man, let destiny turn my way.”

“
C'est très simple,
” Pascal responded, summarizing all of life in his bland, authoritative response. “All you have to do is guess where the die is.”

“Sure, it's simple, why am I trusting you?” Abdul shouted protestingly, performing a splenetic jig, a grimace twisting his features. “Just this once, Allah, guide me through the desert to the promised land!”

A little girl stood skipping rope in the middle of the street. A Sunday afternoon theatre troupe tr udged through. A jumble of harlequins, worn bass drums completed by a trio of clowns hauling a makeshift box constructed to simulate a royal coach. Abdul was blind to it all, and frantically threw three hundred franc notes on the table and smacked his palm flat onto the middle cup.

“There! I'm sure of it!”

Pascal lifted the cup, his granite features immovable.

“Three hundred francs for the
beur
.”

“
Allahu akbar, allahu akbar!”

He stuffed the hundred franc notes recklessly into a

snotty
mouchoir
. Despite the whole thing being an utter sham, the same suckers still showed up, with a few new customers lagging around, who had seen the trick performed a thousand times, yet walked up, and after the ritual hesitations, analyses, back and forths, squinting of the eyes and smacking of palms, placed their money
.

I accompanied her as far as the St-Denis post office, let her continue. There was a letter waiting for me in the
Poste Restante
. No return address, something from Montreal.

Dear Franck,

I am writing you from my hospital bed, where I have been prostrate for ten days. I know that means nothing to you, that you have forgotten my very existence. Your daughter asks every day when daddy is coming home. I have told her you are looking for diamonds in South America, and that you will return as a millionaire. You are a real son of a bitch, Franck. I know that nobody has ever meant anything to you, but, if you have any decency, you might send us a cheque once in a while. I don't have enough money, but when I do, I'm going to hire a contract killer, and do the world a favour.

I momentarily attempted to conjure up an image of the sender, and failed, despite having lived with her for years, and fathered three of her children. The effect of the letter was similar to what I might have felt upon discovering that I had left a phone bill unpaid at a former address.

As I completed my reading of the unsigned missive, I found myself in front of a
tabac
, stepped inside and picked up a box of Danneman cigars and the Friday night race card for the Vincennes track. Alena's pimp Yannick had given me some inside information on a trotter named
Hollywood or Bust
, carded on the fourth race, which according to Yannick was going to be thrown.
Hollywood or Bust
was pegged at 48-1 on the preliminary card. Those types of odds on a quinte win meant enough for six months of whoring and plenty of pocket change for rounds of Ricard. For my new
friends.

Outside of Tranh, a casual relationship at best, with no risk of going anywhere, there was no one in my life. Unless you counted whores. My whole existence was being played out in the mind. There was death to consider, which meant being buried or cremated somewhere, but even that could be outsourced. Or, you could just opt for the default button, and die in the street, and be tossed in a garbage truck with the rest of the waste of St-Denis. Maybe they'd send the invoice to my ex-wife under the Decree of Thermidor Year II, concerning the duty to dispose of the remains of family members.

The key to the city was picking your
arrondissement
and sticking with it. Each one of them had a personality and, if you made the wrong pick, sooner or later you would be forced to leave out of apathy, disgust or fear. The second and ninth provided everything you needed if your predilection was vice: bordellos, sex shops,
clubs échangistes
, S & M, wine caves, and meat shops threaded in and out of the quarter, underlining that we were all just meat at various stages of the coil from breeding ground to slaughterhouse. Which brought me back to a core realisation. If my life had any limited meaning, it was only that I belonged in Paris. It provided me with the one thing I had truly sought out of life. Anonymity. Sheba had been a brief interlude, during which I suffered from the hallucination that she could answer a question which even I didn't know how to formulate. Or so I thought at the time. I spent most of the following morning hanging a set of erotic sketches drawn by Eisenstein which I had recently purchased. The walls of number 2,
rue de Mulhou se
, were now covered with paintings, drawings, lithographs, etchings, sketches of women. Kama sutra postures, Munch adolescents, Picabia pastiches of meat grinders titled
Voici la femme
. Garish harlets, schoolgirls in pleated skirts, nubians covering their cunts with flat palms, as if their uncle had just walked into the boudoir and was preparing to rape them.

As I stepped into the corridor, I caught sight of the old woman, down on her knees in the communal toilet, vigorously scrubbing the inside of the cracked porcelain bowl with a brush. Skinny as a pole, rigidly balanced on a set of scrawny, doorknob knees. She wore a pink set of thirty year old babydolls. Her stubby backside visible through the meshed layers of her negligée. Inside the W.C., three clothes lines criss-crossing, wall to wall. Panties, hosiery, bras, bustiers, corsets hanging from the lines. A curl of cigarette smoke wafted upwards from the crack bet ween her skeletal buttocks, sending out unspeakable invitations. A cemetery of her past and whatever it contained.

Her door was a little further down the hall. On the outside, a label, reproducing the name I had seen on her postal box downstairs: C. Ducastin-Chanel. DucastinChanel had taken up the habit of saluting me whenever I passed by her door in the early evening on my way out. “
Vous descendez en ville, monsieur Franck
?” she squawked. Her head swivelled, revealing a gnarled, crooked mouth and beady eyes.

“
Vous descendez en ville, monsieur Franck
?”

“What's it to you?”

“Sin wasn't invented yesterday, my friend.” “Get back to your scrubbing, old woman.”