Shadow Games (16 page)

"I'm
Keeny
!" she cried. "I'm the secretary of the Chicago Chapter of the Wade Preston Fan Club."

Keeny
. God, even their names were strange.

Preston forced another smile. "How nice for you."

The pretty girl serving as hostess for the lounge glanced over from her post. She gave Preston a look of some sympathy, obviously seeing that Preston thought all this was just as pathetic as she did. They were members of the same club, the pretty girl and Preston—the club of good looking people whose appearance was negotiable currency in virtually any country.

Preston had only recently started doing these fan club gigs because the word in Hollywood was that westerns—after the success of Eastwood's
The
Unforgiven
—were getting hot again. Wade Preston owned seven years of
Town Marshal
(full color and an impressive lineup of guest stars) and he planned to make several million syndicating them to local stations.

And this, alas, meant promoting the series and turning up at these fan club functions again, something he'd refused to do for the past fifteen years. It was one thing to send all the geeks and freaks a nice little tax-deductible semi-annual newsletter, and put in an appearance at the Western Jamboree of former
western stars (most of whom were fairies and drunks or both), and always sign the glossies the fans sent in and mail them back at his own expense.

But now here he was, actually meeting the bastards. Seeing them in all their sad shabbiness.

"You ready to go in...Wade?"
Keeny
or Kenny or Kitty or whatever-the-fuck-her-name-was said.

"Go in?"

She nodded with her white cowboy hat with the name Marshal Drake spelled out in spangles on the front. "We rented a room special for this afternoon. I mean, we all chipped in."

And it was then that the woman in a wheelchair produced from beneath the blanket covering her lap a cap pistol and began firing it into the air.

A handsome couple in the lobby jerked about, startled, at the sound of the cap pistol. At first, they looked terrified—face it, in our society today, most of us know that violence can come anyplace, anytime—and then, seeing the geeks and freaks gathered like puppies around Wade Preston, they frowned with great, theatrical displeasure.

And it was then that the door to the private conference room opened and the theme from
Town Marshal
blared forth on a warbling sound track.

And the old broad in the wheelchair let go with the cap pistol again.

And the woman with the discolored teeth started planting big, wet, sloppy kisses all over his face again.

And one of the men in the background, one of the men who hadn't spoken before, said in the terrible, trembling voice of the stutterer, "W-we s-sure I-love y-you Marshal D-Drake!"

And then he was pushed forward into the room where the
Town Marshal
soundtrack continued to warble ("He's the man with the gun/the man who won't run/Town Marshal/Town Marshal").

The old broad took two more quick shots just before they got him inside and closed the door.

Preston squared his shoulders and put a manly grin on his face. He'd agreed to give them an hour, but he was damn sure going to leave sooner if he could.

Cobey's
Tapes

In re: Wade Preston

The thing was, how I came to find out about what Wade Preston was really up to, was total fucking convoluted coincidence, the kind that story editors chew writers' asses off for (and I should know, having tried to sell scripts to those faggot bastards when I first got out of the asylum).

Total coincidence.

As in: The year is 1989. I've been out for about a year, and I'm doing the strip. Sunset Strip, of course, and by "doing" I am talking all the reds and blues and yellows and uppers and downers and sideways I can get my sweaty little hands on...because the night before, on CBS, there's this TV movie and in it, with a two-line part, is Tim Flowers.

TIM-FUCKING-FLOWERS!

The same kid, six years earlier, I bumped out of the No 1 slot as America's cuddliest-cutest teenage TV star.

His show had been off the air less than four years...and this following a
seven year
run at the top...and the best gig he can find is two lines on a TV movie?

At least I didn't drink.

I don't give myself much credit for anything...but at least I didn't drink.

I just got up and turned off the TV and sat in the dark for a long, long time.

Someday, sooner than later, I was going to be Tim Flowers. Two lines on a TV movie...and then maybe a life-long gig at some Porsche dealership along with two or three other well-kept has-beans, all those upper class bitches finger fucking themselves on the way home from flirting at the dealership...

Sometime around midnight—and I'm not proud of this, believe me—I called Mindy. The fag hag with all the underground connections...

Back in the days of radicalism, Mindy once hid out for an entire year two campus
SDSers
who were wanted by the
federales
for blowing up a science department back in the Midwest.

After radicalism, Mindy settled her sights on
groupiedom
and fag
hagdom
and you never knew who you'd see at Mindy's little house in Coldwater Canyon, her father being able to supply her with plenty of jack, owning as he does the second largest investment banking company in the world.

Anyway, I needed Mindy's blend of sex (not with Mindy, of course, but with one of her minions—Mindy's Minions, pretty good, huh?), one of those hot, crazed little Sunset street girls that she never seemed to run out of...one of her Minions...and lots of her red/blue/yellow mind-blowers...and lots of her good grub. Mindy can cook her considerable ass off.

A retreat at Mindy's spa is what I needed...and since the flesh is weak...it's exactly what I ordered up, too.

And, at first, it was nice.

When I got there, it was already like three o'clock in the AM. The Whole Sick Crew was there—the people may change but the roles they play are the same. This was Mindy's version of the Ark, I guess: two of everything—a lesbian couple; a gay couple; two bikers with two biker chicks with the four of them wearing matching leather outfits; two punk-type musicians from the same band, one with a safety pin in his nose and the other with one glass eye; and two of Mindy's own girlfriends, the wan and severely beautiful Barnard or Smith types that Mindy always goes for—having never been allowed to be a member of this particular club, Mindy seems in equal parts to lust after and loathe these girls...

And there was some kind of 1968 rave-up going on...the music ear-splittingly high...and running to the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Cream and, the only stuff I liked, some chunky, funky music from Credence Clearwater for lowborn white niggers such as myself...

And everybody's reminiscing about peace marches and draft card burning and what a pig Nixon was and how one of them once dropped some acid into this cop's Pepsi without him knowing...and this wedding ceremony one dewy dawn when everybody (bridegroom-minister-all-the-guests) stood buck ass naked in the splendiferous morn with this flute and guitar music making even
the forest animals get groovy...and how this was a fucking racist-homophobic-male-chauvinist-capitalist-pig society and maybe Charlie Manson was a fucking psycho but at least his heart was in the right place...

And on and on and on.

A circle jerk for an entire generation.

And, finally, the reds and blues having kicked in, I went searching through the back bedrooms—I'd had enough of the tears and rage and pride of the Woodstock generation. You never knew what you'd find. Not at Mindy's, you didn't.

And I lucked out.

There was this street chick sleeping in a single bed. I say street chick, because the first thing I did was check through her clothes to see if she was a
narc
. There was a famous incident at Mindy's where this
narc
had had so much acid that he'd gone over to the other side.

I say street chick, because her jeans and her GRATEFUL DEAD T-shirt and little white bikini underwear were all filthy, especially the latter.

I went out and came back a few minutes later and when she woke up—stoned as shit—she said in this groggy voice, "What're you
doin
?"

And I said, "You'll see."

And what I was doing, of course, there with my small bowl of hot water and bar of Dove soap and clean, nubby washcloth and clean, nubby towel—what I was doing was giving her a sponge bath, cleaning up that sweet little face and sweet little breasts and that sweet little Midwestern pussy of hers.

And when I was finished—I do believe that at this exact moment she had slipped back into a state of unconsciousness—when I was finished, I slipped my finger inside her and started trying to get her wet.

By the time I was on top of her and inside, her eyes were open and she said, "Wow! You're
Cobey
!"

And I grinned, and then we really wailed on that sweet little Midwestern snatch of hers.

And the rest of the next twelve hours sort of went the same way. There were one or two other street chicks in and out (or, rather, I was in and out of them) and I was doing fine, but then early afternoon somebody had a bottle of wine and

That's how it started. I remember the first drink and the feeling that I had this stuff whipped now. That drinking would never control me again, etc., etc., etc., all the standard bullshit rationalizations for falling off the wagon again.

...
and suddenly it's night and I'm back in the bedroom with this other street chick when I suddenly realize that Mindy is in the bed too and we're both doing up this
chickie
and
—

And my dick goes dead. Like somebody pulled the plug or something. No more Mr. Erection.

Which happens not with drugs (for some reason) but happens all the time with booze (for some reason).

So I more or less get dressed and wander out into the living room where (somehow) the '60's party is going strong and now we're hearing the mandatory Beatles and the mandatory Stones.

And one of the gay guys says something I can't quite hear and I give him a little shove (and don't tell me I'm homophobic because so many people think I'm gay that I identify with gay anger and gay pride and all those things—true facts—and no this guy was just a bleeping asshole is why I shoved him).

And I know it's starting now.

All that
effing
rage.

And the gay guy's boyfriend shoves me right back.

And then all of a sudden I'm in the kitchen and everybody's standing around me and Mindy's there and she's daubing at my forehead with a washcloth that she keeps dipping into this bowl of warm water.

And I hear her say, "I don't think there's a concussion. He just got knocked out is all."

And people keep peering down into my face (as if I'm seeing them through one of those distorting fish-eye lenses) and staring into my eyes and looking real concerned.

And saying, "Well, I'm sorry I pushed him, Mindy, but he had no reason to shove
Jace
that way."

And saying, "I knew as soon as I saw him drinking that he'd turn asshole on us. He always does."

And saying, "Give him a ride somewhere. We were having a nice time before he came."

And
—

And
—

And
—

Sometime around ten o'clock that night, I woke up in the back booth of this little bar just off the bad end of Sunset.