Sick City (14 page)

It was rent day in the Hotel Barbarossa, and as usual Atef was left chasing up money from the scum and the deadbeats who had run this place into the dirt over the years. When his father had come from Pakistan in the '60s, they had decent clients then. Poor, but honest. Wannabe actresses, musicians, screenwriters, all drawn to the West Coast by the lure of the film industry.

Atef's memories of growing up here were mostly positive: at least, up until the '70s. That was when his father had started drinking, and the neighborhood's slow decline had started to become the hotel's decline. As Mexicans and Guatemalans replaced the Filipinos and Jews, gang activity around the park had turned the hotel into a haven for drug dealers, prostitutes, and addicts. His father was too old, drunk, and tired to try to maintain the place, and by the time the old man died of a heart attack in the early '80s, Atef found himself inheriting a notorious flophouse.

· · ·

The place barely survived year to year, and Atef treated his residents with as much disdain as they treated the building. One of his regular Thursday rituals was the rent collection. Walking the floors, hammering on the doors, warning the clients that they would be thrown out if they didn't pay up today. Sometimes they would try to ignore his warnings, and at least once a month he had to chase someone out with a baseball bat. Mostly, though, they paid, albeit reluctantly.

“Hello? Rent day!” Atef screamed through the door again, beating against it with his fist. He repeated his yell and placed an ear to the door. Nothing. Sighing, he slid his key into the lock and let himself in.

He half expected the room to be empty. Most of them just took off in the middle of the night, off to other hotels, maybe to a period of sleeping on the streets. But not today. As he opened the door, he saw her lying in the bed, naked, the sheets bunched up around her belly. He took in the peaceful look on her face, and then the breasts, which just sat there pointing upward, tying his tongue for a moment.

“Hello? Miss, hello?”

There was no reply. Outside he could hear the drilling of concrete, the screams of people driven insane by the heat already, but in this room everything was still, quiet. He crept forward.

Her mouth was hanging open slightly, giving her a slightly mongoloid look. He stared at her breasts and noted that her chest was not rising and falling. As his eyes lingered on them, he felt himself getting hard. He'd had a hard-on for this bitch for a while now. Always hoping somewhere in the back of his mind that she would come to him with money problems, looking for some kind of arrangement to keep her room. It never happened, though, not with this one. There were a few of the girls who paid with furtive blowjobs and hurried fucks in the dreary front office, but this one always had the money at the end of the week. Atef wasn't surprised. She was by far the most beautiful whore in the place.

He reached out, touched her throat. The skin was icy to the touch, and there was no pulse. He allowed his hand to travel down her body, coming to rest on her breast. Even cool like this, it was still firm. He ran his thumb over her nipple. Then clearing his throat, he straightened up and went back to the door. He closed it and clicked the lock in place.

He looked around the room. On the bedside cabinet were several prescription bottles. One for diazepam, one for Xanax, one for something called Dilaudid, and another for Ambien. Large bottles. The only one with any remaining pills was the Ambien. He pocketed the remainder, and noticed her purse on the floor next to the bed. He went through it, removing eighty dollars and some Trojans. Then he returned his attention to the woman. Another fucking OD. Well used to this routine by now, Atef took his time. Glancing at the door one more time, he unzipped himself and started playing with his aching cock.

“Now you're fucking dead, you bitch . . . ,” he said to her. “Now I can do anything I want to you, huh? You like this, don't you? You like watching me jerk off. . . .”

With his free hand he touched the dead girl's breasts. Then, frowning, he put his finger to her jaw and forced the mouth shut. That was better.

As he started to beat faster and faster, he pulled the sheet away, to further expose her naked body. As the sheet fluttered to the ground, he froze. He immediately felt a shudder run through his body. He muttered, “Jesus CHRIST!” and pulled his hand away from the sheet as if he had received an electric shock. He felt his dick go limp in his hand. He scurried to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, stuffing his penis back in his pants guiltily. He ran his hands through his wet hair and looked at himself in the mirror. He retched a little, barely believing what he had seen. He went back to the door and looked over at the bed.
Jesus fucking Christ,
he thought,
when you think they can't get any worse, they do!

He looked again at the huge, out-of-place penis between the girl's legs over there on the bed. He noted, a little ashamed, that it looked bigger than his. She was so beautiful, so feminine, and small, yet there was this thick, ugly penis sprouting out of her like some monstrous challenge to nature. Atef shuddered.
People PAY for this?
he thought, outraged.
There are some real sick motherfuckers out there!

Taking one last look around the room for valuables, he finally stormed out, locking the door behind him, so he could make that familiar 911 call. He knew that the cops would take their sweet goddamned time, as always. He poured a larger than usual finger of whiskey into his mid-morning coffee and waited. Champagne was a fucking MAN. He shuddered with disgust and raised the cracked cup to his lips.

After almost two hours of waiting in the lobby of Clean and Serene, Jeffrey grabbed his case and stepped out onto the street. He couldn't take the looks the receptionist was giving him anymore.
Poor bastard,
her face said,
he's doomed
.

Outside, there was nothing around, except for a two-lane highway and a McDonald's. This was a neighborhood in name only, nothing more than a collection of anonymous buildings built to be observed through the unreal lens of a car's windshield.

Earlier that day, he had scribbled his cell number on a napkin and handed it to Randal. Randal had smiled and pocketed it. “Two weeks, man,” Randal had said, “I'll catch up with you in two weeks. Don't go fuckin' OD'ing on me or something.”

“I'll be okay. I gotta find a place to live, and all of that bullshit. Call me when you get out, and we can take care of business.”

“Got it.”

Then Jeffrey had gone downstairs to start the process of checking out.

He called Tyler's cell again. There was no answer.

The sun felt good against Jeffrey's skin. It was nice to be away from the incessant air-conditioning. He looked to his left and noticed there was a liquor store. He wondered if the treatment center or the liquor store had come first. It seemed like a perfectly symbiotic relationship. Everybody wins if a drunk walks out of this place and buys a bottle of booze. Everybody except the drunk.

A rusted 1980 AMC Pacer pulled up beside Jeffrey, belching fetid black smoke. The horn honked three good, long blasts. Jeffrey peered in and cursed under his breath. It was Spider. He pulled open the door.

“Where's Tyler?”

“Home. He sent me. Jesus Christ, ya shoulda seen the fucking swish he had me drop off. Goddamn. Fruitier bastard I've never seen before. No offense, man. But the kid was a fag with a capital F, ya know?”

Jeffrey shoved the case in the backseat and got in. Spider was manic and sweating up a storm. Tweaked out, as usual.

“I'm going to kick Tyler's ass,” Jeffrey said.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

Spider stuck the car into Drive, and they squealed away. As they weaved in and out of traffic, Spider talked a machine-gun monologue, cutting through traffic and slamming his fist against the horn whenever anyone got in his way. At Jeffrey's feet something that looked like meat lasagna was ground into the rubber slip mats and the inside of the car smelled of fried onions and toxic sweat. “So, uh, you're clean now, huh?” Spider was saying. “Clean and serene. Goddamn. That's a good thing. I'm proud of you, man. So what's next? Uh, you got any plans?”

“I think I'm gonna get out of LA.”

“Really? Why?”

Jeffrey shrugged. “I just need a change of scene.”

“Well, whatever floats your boat, man. But you know, where are you gonna go? This is LA, man. The center of the universe. We got everything here. I'm so sick of people putting this place down, like we're not cool or something. Like we're not New York. Man,
fuck
New York. I never met anyone from New York I liked. They can keep it, you know? What, you wanna go to New York?”

Jeffrey shrugged.

“No. Maybe get out of the States for a while. I dunno.”

At this, Spider slammed on the brakes. An SUV directly behind them swerved, and the wailing horn faded into the distance as it barreled past them, nearly mounting the sidewalk in the process. Spider looked over at Jeffrey, incredulous.

“Leave the STATES?”

“Sure, why not?”

Spider sniffed and twitched a little. Then he took off again, muttering to himself. He seemed genuinely aggrieved by the idea that Jeffrey might leave the U.S.

· · ·

“Crazy shit, man. You know people are like riding on fucking rafts made out of banana crates right now, trying to get in here? Jumping over walls and shit. And you wanna leave? Where the fuck are you gonna go? Leave the States! Jesus Christ!”

They rode for a while in silence. They took the 101 to Hollywood and Jeffrey instructed Spider to take the exit at Vine. Then Jeffrey said: “Stop the car.”

“What? I thought we're goin' to Tyler's place!”

“No. I need to make a stop. Tell Tyler I'll swing by tomorrow night.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

They pulled up by the Pantages Theater. Jeffrey grabbed his bag and said, “I'll catch you soon, Spider.”

“Take it easy.”

Outside, the streets were balmy. He walked west, until he hit a favorite bar of his, Bob's Frolic Room. He walked into the cool, dark space. On one wall, a colorful mural depicted various Hollywood legends who had surely never set foot in the place. At the bar were a handful of afternoon drinkers. On the television,
The Young and the Restless
was playing and the barmaid, an impossibly tiny Russian lady, was watching it, rapt as she polished a glass. Jeffrey took his seat at the bar. To his right was an old man with a gray beard reading
LA Weekly
. He was eating popcorn and drinking a beer.

“Whattya have, hon?”

“Corona.”

“Sure thing.”

· · ·

He left a twenty on the bar, and she pushed the frosty bottle over to him. Jeffrey opened up his bag and there, sitting reproachfully on top of his clothes, was his copy of the
Big Book
of Alcoholics Anonymous. He took it out and placed it on the empty bar stool next to his. He looked at his own reflection in the mirror that lined the bar and the rows of bottles. Each one promising freedom, wit, good times. He thought about Dr. Mike's smooth, airbrushed face, and the smooth, assured baritone of his voice. How sobriety had seemed so easy, so logical inside of the doctor's office. He took a pull of the beer. The beer tasted good. The beer tasted better than good—it tasted wonderful.

There were two weeks to wait before Randal finished his treatment. All he had to do was find a place to lay low until then, and they could work on making enough money to split LA forever. The idea of having to hold it together for even a couple of weeks was strangely terrifying. It seemed like an impossibly long time.

No drugs, he told himself. Just booze. You can still make the meetings, but if you need to get fucked up stick to booze. You can hold it together. He thought momentarily about having to step foot in Tyler's place, and the temptations that would entail. That's why he couldn't go tonight. He felt too fragile. It was too early. He needed to have a few drinks, unwind, find a place to stay for the night, and then in the morning he could make it to Tyler's. No worries. No worries.

Jeffrey closed his eyes, thankful to at last be back where he felt at home. He put the bottle to his lips and took a long slug. He slid the empty bottle away from him and signaled for another.

Pat sat behind the wheel of the rusted red Toyota, watching the apartment building. He had the patience of a crab. His eyes were milky white in the dim sun. Trina was filing her nails. She was hunched down in her seat, with her knees on the dash. Fine strands of her hair were plastered to her forehead with perspiration, and her brow was furrowed in concentration. She looked like an impatient, petulant child.

There was a Carl's Jr. bag at Pat's feet. It contained onion rings. Pat reached into the bag absentmindedly without taking his eyes off the building across the street. The windows of the car were rolled down, and the air outside was murky, heavy with the scent of juniper and the chirps of crickets.

“I don't know how you can eat that shit,” Trina said without looking up from her nails.

“These onion rings are superior in every way to the onion rings from Jack in the Box,” Pat said.

“What about Fatburger?”

“Fatburger has good onion rings. But I don't like their French fries.”

He took a bite.

“Anyways I don't mean THAT,” Trina said, looking admiringly at her nails and putting the nail file back in her purse, next to the duct tape. “I just mean I don't know how you can eat anything. I'm too nervous.”

“Nuthin' to be nervous about, girl. He don't got a gun, right?”

“He's got a gun. I told you that. He don't got bullets. He's got a gun that he bought someplace, but he just takes it out when he's trying to impress boys. Even if he did have bullets, he wouldn't know how to use it.”

“He don't keep it on him.”

“Right.”

“Then that's what I mean. There's nothing to be nervous about. Here . . .”

He reached into the bag and handed an onion ring to Trina. She took it, looking unsure. Pat grinned at her. After smoking meth earlier her stomach felt disembodied, obsolete. She couldn't remember what hunger felt like. Her nerves were on edge in a way that was both unbearable and delicious. It felt like she was about to score drugs. She took a bite anyway and then quickly shook her head, dropping the rest of the ring into Pat's outstretched hand.

“I prefer In-N-Out's,” she said.

Pat shushed her. A shadowy figure emerged from the building dragging a suitcase behind him.

“That's him, right? His buddy?”

“Uh-huh. Sure is.”

They watched as Spider fumbled with his keys, cursed, wrenched open the door of the car, and tossed the case inside. Then he got behind the wheel and looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

With a squeal of tires, Spider tore off down the road, signifying that Tyler was home alone.

——————

When the knocks came, Tyler assumed that it was Spider trying to haggle more drugs from him. “Son of a BITCH,” he said, getting up from the couch. He put his eye to the peephole and saw Trina standing there, alone. She was biting her nails and fidgeting from foot to foot. She looked like she was working her nerve up to something. Great. Another fucking mooch. This was turning out to be a fucked-up kind of a night.

“Bitch,” Tyler started yelling to her as he pulled back the four dead bolts one after the other. “You'd better not be looking for handouts. I've had about all I can take tonight. I'm getting sick of you cunts treating this place like it's—”

He was going to say “Bank of America,” but before he could get the words out, the door—which he had started to pull open—was violently kicked from the other side. It smashed into his face, making the world go gray for a moment. He staggered back a couple of steps before his legs buckled underneath him. There was movement all around him. Suddenly a pair of strong hands grabbed Tyler by his eighty-dollar vintage Joan Jett T-shirt and hauled him to his feet. Tyler was staring into a mouth full of yellow, ground-down teeth.

· · ·

“Who ya callin' a bitch, pretty boy? Huh? Who you callin' a bitch?” the mouth screamed at him.

“Uh? Uh?” Tyler grunted. He was roughly shoved against the wall, knocking the wind out of him again. Pat punched him in the gut.

Tyler groaned and retched.

He heard Trina scraping the dead bolts back into place, locking them all inside.

More punches landed, thudding against his face, knocking his vision out of whack.

THUNKTHUNKTHUNK

One blow connected squarely with his left ear, and everything went quiet for a moment

before the world ERUPTED with the screaming of a thousand unearthly alarm bells.

Tyler looked up, confused.

He didn't recognize the face in front of him.

“The money and the drugs, faggot. Where are they?” the face was demanding. “If you get stupid with me, so help me fucking God I'll kill you. . . .”

Pat grabbed Tyler by the balls. He gripped them hard. He held Tyler up by the throat with the other hand. He started to twist Tyler's balls violently. Tyler wept and keened in a terrified, agonized way.

· · ·

“I will fuck your pansy ass up if you don't start talking. You got me?”

Tyler struggled some more. Pat gave the nuts a further twist. It felt as if he were trying to tear them off. The agony made Tyler double up, but as he did so, Pat choked him and forced him upright again.

“GOT ME?”

“Yes!” Tyler screeched. Pat let him go, and Tyler collapsed into a pile on the floor, breathing ragged huffs.

As Tyler lay there trembling, Pat threw something round and shiny over to Trina. “It's gonna get noisy in here,” he said. “Crank the volume on this. Track seven.”

As Trina scurried off to fiddle with Tyler's stereo, Pat stood over Tyler with a stony expression.

“Look, man,” Tyler started, “I don't want any—UGH!”

Pat had kicked Tyler in the guts, hard. “You speak when you're spoken to, cream puff.”

“Got it!” Trina said. “Against All Odds” blared out of the speaker system. “Louder!” Pat demanded. Trina cranked the volume. Pat crouched down and grabbed Tyler's face, twisting it around.

“You know something about this song?” Pat said. “Phil Collins recorded this for
Face Value
, his first solo album. It didn't make the cut. He didn't think it was good enough. He ended up giving it away for the soundtrack of some two-bit piece of shit movie. And you know something? He won the fucking Grammy for it. Knocked “Footloose” off the number-one spot. Probably one of old Phil's most successful, best-loved songs. And he almost ditched it altogether. What does that tell you?”

· · ·

Tyler shook his head, confused. Pat grabbed him by the hair and slammed his skull against the floor.

“I SAID, WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU, PRINCESS?”

“Uh . . . uh . . . Jesus Christ . . . ah—that . . . that you never . . . can tell?”

Pat laughed. He looked over to Trina and said, “You heard this dumb motherfucker? Can you believe this prick?”

Pat looked back at Tyler with a look that further chilled his blood.

“I'll spell it out for ya, cupcake. It tells you that your life can get fucked up by one bad decision. Phil Collins got lucky, because someone gave that song a second chance. Me, I don't give second chances. So you'd better make sure that whatever decision you make here today is the RIGHT fucking decision. I'm gonna ask you some fucking questions and I'd better get some straight fucking answers outta you, okay?”

He punctuated this by slamming Tyler's skull against the floor a few more times. Then Pat stood.

“Bring that chair over here,” Pat said to Trina, pointing to the middle of the floor. She did as she was told. She didn't look at Tyler. He was just a shapeless mass on the floor. If she didn't look at him, then he couldn't look at her. She didn't want him to look at her.

Even when they both lifted Tyler by the armpits off the floor and onto the chair, she didn't look into his face. Tyler couldn't raise his head, anyway. He was oozing blood and snot from his mouth and his nose. He just slumped there.

· · ·

“Tape,” Pat said.

Trina retrieved the duct tape from her purse and handed it to Pat. He used the whole roll. The silver tape covered Tyler's arms and his legs in a cocoon, bonding him to the seat. His head was still slumped down, so Pat slapped his face a little.

“Wake up, pretty boy,” Pat crooned.

Trina left and started rummaging through Tyler's bedroom, while Pat began to extract information from his victim. Immediately, she found a pile of meth on the nightstand. She cut herself a line and snorted it. It burned. Her eyes watered. Goddamnit. Then she started opening drawers, cupboards, looking under beds with a renewed vigor. In the next room she could hear the music blaring, not quite drowning out the other noises: thumps and staccato, high-pitched squeals like one of those toy dogs from Chinatown that barks and flips over. She didn't feel regret. She didn't feel anything. She felt excitement, she guessed. She mentally placed herself in Pat's car; both of them with the money and the drugs, heading off down the highway to a new life. No more Crazy Girls, no more Hollywood. Maybe they really would go to San Francisco just like Pat said. Maybe for once someone would keep a promise they'd made her.

When she got back in the room, there was a lot of blood on Tyler. He had a rag shoved in his mouth, and it had been duct-taped in place. The rag was deep crimson. Pat was on the other side of the room, arms folded, looking at Tyler impassively. Phil was now singing “You Can't Hurry Love.”

“He don't wanna talk,” Pat said.

“Oh. What do we do?”

“We make him talk.”

Pat stood up suddenly and walked toward the kitchen.

“I wanna beer,” he yelled over to Trina. “You want anything?”

“No. There's go fast in the bedroom.”

“How much?”

“Just a little.”

“Fuck it. I got my own.”

Pat walked away.

When they were alone for a moment, Tyler started shaking his head, calling Trina over. She approached him cautiously, careful not to get too close. With a shaky hand, she reached out and unpeeled the duct tape from his mouth. Tyler spat the bloody rag out.

“Trina. Trina. Help me,” Tyler whispered, as his glance darted between her and the door to the kitchen.

“It's too late for that,” she replied, with something like regret in her voice. “Where's the money?”

Tyler glared at her. He was going to have this bitch hunted down and killed, he thought. That was the only comforting thought he could conjure right now. He would have her killed. They would find her in a garbage Dumpster. And he would make sure that the last thing she would do before they killed her was beg for mercy. And then she would be dead. Then Tyler looked miserably at his bound feet.

“Fucking Mexican beer!” Pat called from the kitchen. “What is it with these fucking hipsters and Mexican beer? What's wrong with Budweiser?”

“If you don't tell him,” Trina said, “he'll kill you. I mean it. He'll kill you.”

· · ·

Pat strode back into the room, halfway down on a bottle of Modello. He looked at Tyler, at the bloody rag on the floor, and then at Trina.

“Is he talking yet?”

Trina shook her head, and walked away from Tyler.

Pat sighed. He came over, lifted Tyler's chin, and glared at him. He slapped Tyler across the nose.

“Where is it?” he said softly.

Tyler sniffled. Pat punched him suddenly, twisting Tyler around with a grunt. The chair, and Tyler still tied to it, went crashing to the floor. Pat roughly shoved the rag back into Tyler's mouth, sealed it back in place with duct tape, and then stepped back, admiring his handiwork. Tyler was looking at Trina's feet and crying. From somewhere in the room, Phil Collins was singing that “love don't come easy . . .”

Trina crouched down. One wide eye stared at her with uncomprehending fury.

“T, he'll kill you. I'm serious.
He's crazy
. He'll fucking kill you.”

Something about the way she said “he's crazy” scared Tyler. She said it with awe in her voice. She said it the same way that someone might point out that her boyfriend owned a Fortune 500 company.

“Just tell us where the shit is, and you'll never see us again.”

“You fucking bitch,” Tyler mumbled through the bloody rag. He felt one of his teeth rattling around in his mouth, and he swallowed it with an involuntary gulp.

Pat grabbed Tyler and sat him up again.

· · ·

“Give me your purse,” Pat said. Trina hesitated for a moment, and then handed it over. She knew what was coming next. Tyler looked toward Pat for a clue. Pat went through the pantomime of looking into the bag and gasping in surprise at what he found there. Then he looked at Tyler and a long, cold grin spread across his face. He reached in and removed a pair of steel pliers.

“Well, look what I got here,” Pat said.

Tyler started to scream, and even through the rag and the duct tape it was pretty loud. Pat ripped Tyler's T-shirt in two, exposing his chest. He sat down on Tyler's lap, facing him.

“Now, don't get too excited, faggot,” Pat said. “I'm just sitting here to hold ya steady. If I feel anything start to grow down there, know this: I will cut it off and make you eat it. Do you understand?”

“Wait a second—” Trina said. “I gotta go pee. Wait till I'm gone.”

She left the room, locked the bathroom door, and sat on the toilet, covering her ears with her hands. In the other room Pat said to Tyler, “Just you and me now, huh?”

He brought the pliers up to Tyler's chest. He pressed the cold metal against Tyler's left nipple. He squeezed it slightly, and a white-hot sensation burned through Tyler. ILLTALK-ILLTALK-ILLTALK. Tyler was screaming it through the rag. ILLTALK-ILLTALK-ILLTALK.

Pat heard. He didn't want the kid to think he was fucking around, so he went ahead anyway and squeezed the nipple as hard as he could with the pliers. A scream came up from deep inside Tyler as the flesh split and the blood started to come. Then with one vicious twist, most of the nipple was ripped away from his chest altogether. As Tyler thrashed and vibrated, Pat held up the little piece of useless flesh still hanging from the jaws of the pliers.