The Nirvana Blues (36 page)

“I've been hearing all sorts of strange tales on the grapevine,” he barked, one of those space-age geeks, apparently, who felt more comfortable, and domineering, yelling at his foes through the blare of a radio, the babble of a loud tube. A syndrome not unlike that of folks who must sleep with the lights on? Joe wondered.

“Such as…?” he said aloud.

“I understand that you and a friend from Palermo broke into the bus station last night and ran off with a little item worth a bundle that belongs to Ray Verboten.”

Calmly, though his heart thundered, Joe said, “Number one—I have no friends from Palermo, Skipper. Number two—we didn't ‘break into' the bus station last night. Number three—it doesn't belong to Ray Verboten, it belongs to me.”

“I see.” Skipper barely blinked. “Now here's my proposition, Joe—and listen carefully, I'm a busy man, I don't want to repeat it. I happen to know there's no way you can legally wrest that land from Eloy Irribabble. Scott Harrison has a more legitimate claim, the First State People's Jug could foreclose tomorrow, I could snap my fingers if I wanted, buy up all the promissories by five o'clock this evening, and own it fair and square. But I'm a reasonable man, and I take it you are also. No need for anybody's feathers to be unduly ruffled. I mean, hey, I talked to Nikita Smatterling earlier, and he was fit to be tied. All his life he worked hard to find the right place for a permanent Hanuman shrine, and now look how bollixed the supposedly straightforward negotiations have become. To make matters worse, I understand Joseph Bonatelli might even launch a power play, either through his bank or on his own—God forbid—out of spite because you imported that little item on the bus without his okay.”

Hail Mary! Joe thought: at least somebody was cautious enough to employ a euphemism for the cocaine!

“So it makes no sense, Joe. Why do you want the wrath of potentates hanging over your head? It's a one-way path to perdition when you embark upon the black-market packaging and distribution of things such as that item you possess. Suddenly, nobody likes you, everybody grows especially defensive, and very greedy. It'll be one of the great races of the year to see who nails you first—the long arm of Eddie Semmelweis, the blunt club of Ray's enforcers, or the icy inimicable cruelty of the Tarantula's wrath. I'm scared for you, Joe—honest. All of us who like you are terrified. The puddle into which you've jumped is bottomless.”

Into which I've jumped? Icy inimicable cruelty?
Wouldn't Heidi love to sink her choppers into
this
turkey!

Astonished by his own wiseapple aplomb under fire, Joe said, “You just offered a proposition?”

“Right. So listen carefully, Joe. I don't wish to repeat myself—”

“Could you turn down that fucking music?”

“Huh?—oh, sure.” Skipper twiddled a knob; wailing Fenders and dyspeptic Moogs gurgled into a slightly lower register. “Now as I understand it, you and your wife Heidi are heading for divorce. That means even if you somehow effectuate a miracle and swing a deal for Eloy whatshisname's property—”

“Irribarren,” Joe interrupted coolly, amazed to hear himself on the attack. “Eloy Irribarren.”

“Sure. Whatever. So let's take the most inadvertent hypothetical miracle that could occur. You somehow live long enough to parlay your radical ineptness into possession of that property—then what happens? In the divorce settlement, Heidi gets at least half … or maybe the whole thing. These judges in Chamisa County, Joe, they go to the highest bidder. And if you think I'm a big roller, you should realize that Mr. Bonatelli and his associates could sprinkle me with salt and eat me for breakfast. Are you paying attention, Joe?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then you have to admit the odds are stacked heavily against your favor. Of course, I should further mention that already every narc in town has you under his microscope, and the second you make a move to score bread for even one gram of that item they'll foreclose on your freedom like a pack of jackals annihilating a wounded antelope.”

“Sounds bad,” Joe said, beginning to feel woozy.

“‘Bad' is hardly the word I'd employ. You happen to be a very little person about to swim into a very big fishnet.”

“I still don't understand the proposition.”

“Okay. Let's see if I can elucidate. You're a nice man, a fairly honest and straightforward person who just happened to stumble into a monumental mismatch. But I for one like you. And especially I hate to see anyone get hurt. No need for that, correct? We're all neighbors in this valley. And with a little effort we should be able to coexist peacefully. So my proposition is as follows. What did that item put you out? I'll meet that sum in cash and throw in your overhead costs as a favor because I hate to see anybody lose on the deal. In return, you deliver to me the item, and I'll place it where it belongs.”

“That's it?”

“You don't look convinced.”

“Frankly, I'm not.”

“Consider the alternatives.”

Joe said, “Suppose I go to the state's attorney general, informing him of your plan to eliminate Cobey Dallas from contention for Eloy's land by collaborating with Roger Petrie in his embezzlement from your own business ventures? Then suppose I could dig up evidence that Roger was also double-crossing you by selling the water rights to land he doesn't own (which have nevertheless been deeded to him by Cobey in return for his collusion in bilking you) to Scott Harrison, who's busily trying to cover his own bets just in case he can't grab the land for legal fees involved in defending it from folks like you and the Tarantula's First State Jug and the Our Lady of the Sorrows Hospital Mafia?”

Skipper blanched, but recovered neatly. “The AG would laugh at you. He's my brother-in-law.”

“Ah-
hah.
” Joe nodded circumspectly.

Abruptly solicitous, Skipper said, “Maybe we could work out a different deal. I hear you and Nancy Ryan have become pretty close. Let's say you two actually tie a knot once you're divested of Heidi and the kids. All right, now here's a distinct possibility. We all know the Simian Foundation desires the land for the monkey shrine—that, quite frankly, is my concern with this whole botched caper. Should you choose to join the foundation, I'm sure that I could convince the board of directors to make you a voting member of the stockholders' association. You turn over your item so that it can be disposed of properly, and in return you win a partial ownership of that property, which can then be promptly dedicated to the spiritual well-being of thousands of conscientious disciples throughout the valley and across the nation. I can't in all conscience believe, Joe, that you'd allow narrow, self-seeking interests to conflict with the greater good.”

“If I don't buy that land, Eloy certainly won't sell to any of you.”

“‘Sell'? Joe, he's not selling that land. He doesn't even own it. He's just squatting on it until the necessary paperwork can be done to hand the terrain over to whom it properly belongs.”

“But if that happens it'll be divvied up into little pieces. A dozen creditors will chop it up like hungry barracudas, and it won't be good for anything.”

“Hopefully we could avoid all that. Such a finale would be a real shame.”

“But the way I figure it is that I'm the only person, right now, who has an honest shot at obtaining the land whole.”

“What about this, then? You need money to buy from Eloy? Good. I'll hand you the money—all of it—sixty thousand dollars, before the bank closes this afternoon. Naturally, we'll sign an agreement that the land goes over to me. As a finder's fee in the land deal, you get double the offer I just made to you for the purchase of that item. Naturally, I receive the item, in conjunction with the land, once Eloy Whosit signs over all the pertinent deeds and quitclaims to you.”

“Meaning you finagle land worth sixty grand for that price plus twenty-four Gs and some odd shekels over that ceiling, and then recoup that investment by unloading a hundred Gs of cocaine? And I wind up with no place to build a home for my future, and only twelve thousand dollars beyond my initial investment for all the risks I've endured?”

“Tell you what,” Skipper rebounded calmly. “You front for me on the land, and I'll give you back your initial investment plus six thousand dollars. And you're allowed to keep half of that certain item to do with as you please.”

“But you said every narc in the county is waiting to pounce. You just told me if they don't get me, Joe Bonatelli or Ray Verboten, or God knows who else will. Right now, that cocaine is absolutely worthless to me.”

“Precisely. So why am I even talking deal with you, Joe? If you turn over that stuff to me, free of any charges whatsoever, and front the purchase of that land for me for the usual ten percent commission, perhaps—and this is even a long shot—I could at least save your ass. To go beyond that, frankly, I'm not at all prepared.”

“Then it's all gibberish. You're not proposing a thing.”

Skipper sighed, straightened back behind the wheel, and frowned morosely. “Ah, what the hell, Joe. You're a pigheaded fool, and already I'm late for my flight to Ohio. My number is in the phone book. Call me whenever you change your mind.”

At the punch of a button, the passenger window hummed shut. Meekly, Joe waved, trying to figure out what, if anything, had just transpired. In the final analysis, only one thing seemed certain: he couldn't win for losing in this game.

“‘Flight to Ohio…?'”

*   *   *

T
HE CASTLE OF
G
OLDEN
F
OOLS
seemed deserted. Although on the surface apparently nothing had changed, everything Joe looked at bore an elliptical tinge, a foreign essence. Only a few hours down the road of separation, yet already the house, trees, battered vehicles, and yard were relating to him as if to a stranger. Even the air seemed indifferent. Joe coasted to a stop beside the Green Gorilla. For a spell longer he dared not dismount and approach the now-neutralized house. He was like a man approaching a disaster; no life existed here. Right around the corner, for sure, he would stumble upon bodies galore, blood-soaked shower curtains, and dripping red butcher knives on the kitchen floor.

Furtively, Joe reconnoitered the second-story windows. But no curtain fell back into place; no telltale sunlight glinted on a rifle barrel; no sign said
TEXAS SCHOOL BOOK DEPOSITORY
. And anyway, the bus was gone. So Heidi was out there somewhere seeing a divorce lawyer, getting stroked by Nikita Smatterling, crying on Suki Terrell's shoulder … or buying a gun.

When he opened the door to their apartment, Joe was flabbergasted. No dirty socks, Tinkertoys, old newspapers, or vacuum-cleaner hoses were spread across the rug. No jelly knives, apple cores, or half-filled coffee cups littered the tables and ledges. No sleeping-bag “nests,” holdovers from Saturday's cartoon time, cluttered the floor before the TV And somebody had actually vacuumed and scrubbed the rug: it didn't smell of cat pee, it wasn't filmed with squashed Play Doh, BBs, cornflakes, peashooter pea seeds, broken crayons, dust furries, and children's dirty underwear. And in the kitchenette—miracle of all miracles—somebody had torn down half the grotesque kiddy pictures taped to the Frigidaire, the smudged black areas around cupboard and drawer handles had been Baboed clean, and three potholders, lost for two years, were hanging on hooks beside the newly scrubbed stove.

No question about it, the place was picked up, neat, positively spotless.

At first, Joe was stunned. Then, remembering all the times he had bitched about the bourgeois shitheap they inhabited, he felt touched, almost tearful. Too late, finally, they had heeded his words. In hopes of bringing him back? Or out of guilt, finally, for driving him away? Or had they only been able to get it together at this late date because previously his shabby personality among them, his presence, had been a catalyst that forged the mess despite his fervent desire for physical law and order in the limited space they occupied?

Cleaned up, the apartment also seemed cold and foreign. As if everything related to his former life had been eradicated overnight: the Khrushchevian deStalinization of Joe Miniver, by his wife and ungrateful kiddies. Had it been done deliberately to offend him? Probably. Joe could picture Heidi in Nazi cap, black boots, and a whip ordering the kids about. Michael worked the vacuum cleaner, Heather wielded dustrag and furniture polish. Frantically, they scrubbed as she screamed: “I don't want any traces of him left, not even a herringbone footprint from his sneakers in the dust. And especially
no trace of his smell!
Nothing! Fini! Kaput! Michael, over here,
quick!
Suck up this feather from that damn jacket of his!”

Joe collapsed into their lone armchair. He cradled the tea box of either his salvation or his total perdition. Suddenly, he felt nauseatingly mortal, as if a major heart attack was already abuilding inside, his veins and vessels twitching, molecules in the blood around his heart metastasizing, coagulating, photosynthesizing—whatever all the coronary thrombotechnicians did just before the shit hit the fan: ten minutes from now he would be dead. And a half-hour from now, when Heidi and the kids came through the door, how would they react? Michael would be genuinely sorry: but his son was the only ally he could count on. Heather would take it in wiseass stride: “Oh dear, Daddy's dead. I'm glad he didn't die in bed.” Heidi would hold up one hand, advising caution before they launched the celebration. “Wait a minute, kids, maybe he's only playing possum. Ever since I've known him he's wanted to be accidentally declared dead, so that he can hear and read all the hosannas in his eulogies and obituaries, like Hemingway in Africa.”