Gods Without Men

2008

Nicky’s leg was throbbing. He spent most of the night sitting on the bed in his underpants, picking little black splinters out of his calf and watching old movies on cable. Men lit women’s cigarettes. Soldiers sacrificed themselves for their buddies. Cowboys raced the stagecoach, watched by Indians on the ridge. It all circled round and round until he couldn’t follow anymore and drifted off to sleep. When he woke, the room was too hot. The sun backlit the curtains. Someone was running a vacuum cleaner on the other side of the wall. He supposed he had to make a decision. Should he go back to L.A.? He just didn’t have the heart for it. The explaining. Rehab. The self-righteous shit Jimmy would come out with at band meeting.

Someone knocked on his door and called out in Spanish. He shouted at them to wait. Breakfast. Never get into anything heavy before breakfast. He limped about looking for shades and car keys, then drove down the hill to the diner, the run-down one shaped like a spaceship. At the counter, he got in a weird row with the waitress about bacon. It’s not supposed to be burnt to a cinder, he told her. It’s bacon, she sneered. Bacon is crispy. If you didn’t want crispy you should have ordered ham.

He came out of the place brushing bits of food off his clothes and decided to have a gander round town. The only place that looked at all enticing — in fact the only place in walking distance that wasn’t boarded up or selling fast food — was a bunkerlike thrift store. Toys and furniture were piled up on the pavement outside. Two supersize women reclined on unplugged massage chairs either side of the door, like a pair of obese ornamental lions. Both gave him the evil eye as he walked up. Inside, the place was a consumer graveyard. The wreckage of every cultural fad since the late seventies had been piled up on long metal shelves. Games cartridges, Barbie dolls, VHS tapes, dusty framed posters of cars and airbrushed Coke cans. A slurry of Reader’s Digests spilled out of a cardboard box in one aisle, blocking the way to the crockery. The rear opened out onto a large back lot filled with appliances and laminate furniture and racks of paperback books bleached pale yellow by the sun. A Jet Ski was surreally beached in front of a row of fridges marking the yard’s back boundary. A rack of clothes, mostly desert fatigues, had a Marine’s dress uniform at one end. Nicky slipped on the jacket. Nice. Team it with some glitter and it’d look fierce on Brick Lane. Still wearing it, he wandered back inside, half aware of someone hovering about behind him.

Finally, he found the vinyl, stacked up in milk crates in a corner. Usual crap. Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, Two Hundred Million More Yuletide Classical Faves Sung by a Tit in an Orange Tie. There were a couple of good sleeves, eighties people with neon clothes and flammable hair. Then he turned up something with a hand-drawn cover featuring a dog-headed figure with cartoon lines emanating from its body. It was standing beside a Joshua tree in front of a weird, organic-looking thing that was probably supposed to be rocks. It looked somehow familiar, though he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before. Seemed to be a Krautrock record. Time of Transposition/The Ashtar Galactic Command. That certainly sounded German.

It was hard to say whether Time of Transposition was the name of the band or the album. He flipped it over and reflexively slid the inner out of the sleeve. The disk was a bit dusty, but otherwise in good nick. The center label read 1971, and it was obviously some kind of private press thing. On the back of the sleeve was a track listing (two long tracks, “Time of Transposition” 1 and 2) and a blurb, which was written in blurry purple type that was impossible to read.

Probably worth a bob or two.

Even so, it was exactly the kind of hippie crap Noah had been waving at him for months and he didn’t feel inclined to buy it. He took the Marine jacket and a couple of the eighties records to the counter, waiting for one of the enormous women to rouse herself and make it over to the till. He had a feeling she didn’t like selling him the jacket. Not that he gave a toss. He put it on as he walked out of the door, flashing her a tin-soldier salute. He sauntered down the block, feeling quite fuck you; he was peering through the window of something called a Weight Loss Club trying to see if it was full of fat people doing exercises, when some kid came up behind him and said hey. He looked about thirteen and kind of Pakistani and was dressed as your standard-issue mini gangsta — everything two sizes too big, baseball cap with the sticky label still on the brim.

“Bro, are you Nicky Capaldi?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome! I knew it was you! She said it wasn’t, but it was. Laila! Laila! It’s him.”

A girl was standing halfway down the block, looking mortified. Her black hair hung in a curtain over her face. Despite the heat she was dressed in full emo black. Dress shirt buttoned up to the neck, jeans, ten-hole steel-toe Docs, silver jewelry. She trudged forward and raised a hand in a weak greeting.

“Sorry,” she said. It wasn’t clear what she was apologizing for.

Nicky was over meeting fans. It always got weird. They gave you stuff: knitted portraits, poems written in their blood. It was better if they were hot, but that came with a whole other set of problems. More than once he’d had to call for Terry after getting himself cornered in a dressing room or toilet cubicle by some girl who was now threatening to cut herself/him/cry rape/not eat/tell their boyfriend/brother/dad if he didn’t do whatever it was he no longer felt like doing. This one was clutching a record behind her back.

“Do you want me to sign that?”

“Whatever,” she said. “I saw you looking at it. That’s all.”

It was the hippie album he’d left in the shop.

“Oh, right. I thought it was one of ours.”

“No. Sorry.”

The boy piped up. “Laila tried to go see you when you played in San Diego, but our uncle wouldn’t let her.”

“Shut up, Samir.”

“He brought her back from the bus station.”

“He strict, then, your uncle?”

The girl shrugged and flicked her hair. As she tilted her head to the side, he saw the dark skin of her throat. She’d powdered her face chalk-white. He figured her for about seventeen.

“Yeah,” she said. “Compared to Americans.”

“Where you from, then?”

“Greatest nation in the world!” butted in the boy. “U.S. of A.!”

“Iraq,” said the girl. “Though my ADD brother tells people he’s American. I’m Laila, he’s Samir. Not Juan-Carlos or Scarface or whatever he told you.”

“Eat me.”

“You are so fucking lame.”

Nicky was confused. “You’re Iraqi. And you’re out here — what — on holiday?”

“We live in this shithole. Our uncle works on the base.”

“So, he’s in the Army?”

“Let’s talk about something else, OK?”

“Laila has a picture of you inside her Spanish grammar book,” Samir mentioned confidentially.

“Well,” said Nicky, eyeing the distance to his car. “That’s great. I’m glad you’re feeling the music and everything. It makes it all worthwhile.”

Laila looked stricken. “Don’t go,” she said. “Just one more minute. My brother’s a retard, but you have no idea how fucked up our world is. If I could have made it to that show, I would have. Your music’s about the only thing that keeps me sane.”

“Thanks,” said Nicky. “I appreciate it. You take it easy.”

She pointed to the records in his hand. “You have a record deck, right? What am I saying? You’re probably staying in a fancy place, with like a widescreen and a pool.”

“I’m just in a motel.”

“Because we’ve got one at our place.”

“Right.”

“And Uncle Hafiz has all this cool old Egyptian pop music.”

“Sounds like cats,” said Samir. “No bass at all.”

“I’d love to, but you know how it is.”

“Sure.”

“But it was good to meet you.”

“You too. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me all year.”

Samir jumped back and took a couple of pictures with his phone. Automatically Nicky smiled, putting his arm round the girl’s shoulders. She molded herself to his side.

“OK, guys, I should get on.”

He walked back towards his car, the high collar of the Marine tunic rubbing at his neck. When he turned round, he saw the two kids were just standing there on the pavement, watching him.

On the way to the motel he stopped off at a market and bought toiletries, booze, a pack of white vests and a pair of surf shorts with a picture of a palm tree on the arse. Back at the motel he put on the shorts and went for a swim, sculling on his back and blinking into the sunlight. He thought about the band and about the album and nothing much good came to mind, which made him start to think about drugs. A nibble on one of those buttons might help take the edge off. He could sit out by the pool, watch the sunset, then drive to get a pizza once the rush had worn off. Plan. He was air-drying on one of the loungers, smoking a self-congratulatory fag, when a policeman came and started talking to the big-haired motel manager. Dude was actually wearing a cowboy hat, which reminded him of how many movies he’d seen the previous night. Mentally he tallied up what he’d done lately. He couldn’t think of anything particularly illegal, unless somehow they’d found the gun. If they’d found the gun he’d have to call Terry. But the cop just talked to the manager and went away again, didn’t even look in his direction.

He went to the room for a beer and flopped back down on the lounger. A few minutes later, two more cops turned up, a man and a woman, with Jaz’s wife in tow. He was pleased to see her and waved, forgetting he didn’t actually know her except through Jaz’s description. She gave him a strange look — more blank than puzzled — and disappeared into their room.

He decided against eating any peyote.

Jaz’s wife came out, sort of leaning on the woman. The manager hurried out of the office and threw her arms round her. All this was happening over by the office, and Nicky couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it looked like she was really spazzing out. He hated stress at the best of times, and hearing about really dark stuff — war-dark, news-channel-dark — tended to trigger a desire to self-medicate. He’d once tried to explain to a reporter about the three-day bender he’d gone on after the invasion of Iraq. It hadn’t been a protest exactly. More a nervous reaction.

The cops left with Mrs. Jaz. He decided to find out what was going on. Leaving his towel on the lounger, he went over to the office and knocked on the rattly screen door.

“Hello? Hello?”

The manager came out from the back. She looked a wreck.

“Sorry to bother you, but is everything OK?”

“Sure ain’t. It’s that couple and their little boy. He’s lost somewhere out near Pinnacle Rocks. They’re searching for him now.” She lit a cigarette. “Police, Park Rangers, they’re all out. Parents turned their back and he was gone.”

Standing there in his swim shorts with the air conditioner blowing down on his neck, Nicky felt cold and damp. Jaz’s kid. Christ. He was about to thank the woman and go back to the pool when a gravelly voice spoke through the screen door.

“Dawn? You in there?”

He turned to find himself face-to-face with the cop in the cowboy hat. He was a middle-aged man, whose large doughy face was set on top of a surprisingly thin body, as if two totally separate physical types had been mashed together to create him. Between the bristly mustache and the aviator sunglasses, he might as well have been wearing a mask.

“Afternoon, son.”

For a moment, Nicky caught his own twin reflections in the mirrored lenses.

The cop scanned his tattoos and curled his lip in distaste. Nicky crossed his arms self-protectively over his narrow chest. He felt naked, talking to a man who had so many accessories — a hat and shades and a badge and a big black leather belt with pouches and cuffs and a baton and a holstered gun — when he had none. Dawn leaned on the counter and jabbed her cigarette in his direction.

“Tom, gentleman here was just asking about the kid.”

He turned to Nicky. “That a fact? Deputy Sheriff Loosemore, San Bernardino County. And you are?”

“Nicky Capaldi.”

“Where you from, son?”

“London. England.”

“I know where London is. Went there couple years back. Can’t say as I cared for it. What happened to your leg?”

“I fell over onto a cactus.”

“Looks infected.”

“It was just an accident.”

“So what about the kid?”

“What’s happened to him?”

“You tell me.”

“Sorry?”

“You have any dealings with the child?”

“Dealings?”

“You talk to him? Dawn says you had him in your room.”

“He doesn’t talk, as such. I gave him and his dad a lift to the Burger King last night. Jaz’s missus’d gone off with the car.”

“The mother had the car.”

“I told you about that,” put in Dawn. “I ran into her at Mulligan’s Lounge, making nice to the boys.”

Jaz couldn’t be too pleased. He didn’t seem like a bloke who’d be overly flexible about that sort of thing. “Do you think someone took him?” he asked. “I hope nothing bad’s happened. He’s a sweet kid.”

The sheriff looked him up and down again. “So you like kids, son?”

“Sure,” he replied carefully. There seemed to be an atmosphere in the room.

“That so? Got any?”

“No.”

“I got three.”

“That’s nice.”

“Two girls and a boy. I’d hate like hell to see anything happen to them. Now, you’re telling me you got friendly with Mr. Matahari and his son last night?”

“Mr. Mat — uh, I didn’t catch the name. Like I said, they needed to go and get food, so I gave them a lift.”

“He was real intimate with the boy,” interjected Dawn. “I was kind of surprised. Kid’s shy.”

What was her game? All hair and fag and green eyeshadow. “He’s autistic,” he explained, throwing her a poisonous look. “It’s a condition. His dad was glad he was responding to someone.”

“And you responded to him too, I expect. Sweet kid like that.”

The sheriff took off his sunglasses. His eyes were small and pale and bedded, top and bottom, in dark puffy pouches, like maggots on spoiled meat. Nicky suddenly had a very clear vision of the downside of his situation. He made a silent vow to get rid of Noah’s gun. And the drugs. And then to enter rehab. Or a monastery. Whatever it took to get away from those maggoty eyes.

“Bit parky in here, what with the air-conditioning. I’ll just go get a shirt.”

“Hold up a minute. I got a few more questions.”

“I’ll come straight back.”

The sheriff turned to Dawn. “Where’s his room?”

“Number five, middle of the block.”

“All right, son, I’ll walk over with you.”

“No need, honest.”

“Just lead the way.”

The twenty paces to his room felt like a trek across open country. He was pretty sure he’d stashed the drugs, but where was the gun? It was possible that he’d been mucking about with it while watching a Bogart movie. There’d definitely been gunplay in that movie. It could be lying there on the bed. He opened the door gingerly. Nothing obvious. The sheriff stood in the doorway while he found his jeans and a T-shirt. If he went into the bathroom to change out of his swimming shorts, the guy might look through his stuff. He undid the string and stood with his thumbs inside the waistband.

“Do you mind?”

“You go right ahead.”

Reluctantly he turned his scrawny buttocks towards the sheriff, who lit a cigarette.

“Tell me, son, you in a gang?”

“No, a band. Musician.”

“You one of them white rappers?”

“No.”

“I see. You probably feel happier now you got your pants on. Less nervous, I expect.”

Another cop came over and said something to the sheriff, who stepped outside, holding up a hand in Nicky’s direction as if to freeze him in place.

The sheriff stepped back in. “Now, son, looks like I got to be elsewhere, but if you’d be so kind as to give your particulars to the deputy here, no doubt I’ll see you later. I’d much appreciate it if you didn’t go anywhere until I say so. You may be able to help us out.”

Without waiting for an answer, he strode off. The deputy, a young Hispanic woman with a braid and the same reflective sunglasses as her boss, took out her notebook.

“Mind showing me some ID, sir?”

He found his wallet on top of the TV. She peered at his driver’s license and handed it back, a quizzical smile on her face.

“Should I know you? You look kind of familiar.”

A helicopter swept overhead, the roar of its rotors filling in for his response.

Twenty minutes and an autograph later, he was on his own again. He flushed the peyote down the toilet, drew the curtains, put the chain on the door and sat against the foot of the bed, smoking and watching a local news channel’s eye-in-the-sky feed of the desert. A scatter of parked cars. A straggly line of deputies sweeping the area.

The situation was fucked up.

He watched TV until the sun went down and he felt safe enough to walk out behind the motel and look for a place to drop the gun. A big fuck-off gold pistol. It would have to be the flashiest cunt of a gun in the whole world. He knew he ought to drive somewhere farther off, but was scared he’d get pulled over. He stood out in the open for a long time, feeling the last of the heat radiating out of the sand and listening to the distant sound of rotors. Some miles away, a helicopter was directing a floodlight at the ground. He watched it hover, a matchstick of light.

In the end he just walked back to the room and switched on the TV. All evening there were comings and goings outside. Voices, car engines, the crackle of police radios. He could still remember, very distinctly, the pressure of the little boy’s hand gripping his.

He was woken early the next morning by a loud rap on the door. He struggled into his jeans and squinted through the spyhole. It wasn’t a cop. Some guy in a suit and tie. The guy kept knocking for a while, then gave up. Nicky took a shower, dressed and checked the spyhole. No one there. When he stepped outside he saw Suit and Tie just down the block. Behind him stood another guy with a video camera.

He shut the door quietly and walked off as quickly as he could without breaking into a run, skirting the pool so as not to draw their attention. Suddenly the office door clattered open and the manager came running out of the office.

“Get off my property. Go on. Right now. You’re trespassing. You’re not guests of the motel and you didn’t sign in, so get the hell out of here.”

“Ma’am,” said Suit and Tie, “we’re just trying to do our job. We’d be happy to get your point of view also.”

Dawn told them to leave her customers alone and Suit and Tie said something about the First Amendment and Nicky tiptoed round the corner to find that the whole front lot was full of cars. There were police vehicles and outside-broadcast vans and station wagons full of local teens hoping to see some action. Cops were drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. News presenters were climbing on boxes to get the motel sign in frame. There was a peculiar carnival atmosphere.

He heard his name being called and turned to find a boy ambling towards him. Seventeen, maybe. White-framed dark glasses and directional hair.

“Nicky Capaldi? I blog at Sounds West. What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to get some breakfast.”

“Are you something to do with the missing kid? I mean, like a relative or something?”

“What are you on about? Shit, my car’s boxed in.”

“Well, it seems like too much of a coincidence that you’re here, like, with this kidnapping going on? I mean, are you here to do a televised appeal?”

“What have you heard?”

“Just that there’s this kid and he’s missing?”

In his peripheral vision, Nicky saw Deputy Sheriff Loosemore. Apparently the blogger was even more unnerved than he was; he immediately made himself scarce. The sheriff leaned against the nearest Crown Victoria and looked him up and down. A few teenagers sidled closer, taking pictures of them talking.

“Deputy Alvarez said you were famous.”

“Any news on the kid?”

“None. We got every available man out looking, so any leads would be appreciated. You met the boy. I’m sure you understand.”

He gestured towards his car, like a salesman. Nicky got in and tried to look nonchalant for the kids sticking their phones up to the passenger window.

“Looks like you’re a regular pied piper to the young folk,” said Loosemore, dropping the sentence onto Nicky’s lap like a rattlesnake. They drove in silence to the station, where in a small act of mercy Nicky was given a coffee and a rubbery Danish which gave him a momentary sugar rush he mistook for optimism. In an interview room, with a tape recorder running, he told the story. The kid running into his room, the trip to Burger King, the chitchat with Jaz. So why had he got up so late? Where had he been during the day? He told the sheriff about the kids at the thrift store, the argument with the waitress at the diner. The interrogation went on and on. In a break, he said he needed to go to the loo, locked himself in a cubicle and phoned Terry.

“Where the hell are you, Nicky?”

“Come and get me.”

“Where are you?”

“Just fucking come, right now.”

“Nicky, listen to me. Are you OK?”

“No. I’m in a cop shop. You’ve got to come and get me.”

“Have they arrested you? Did you get arrested? It says on the Internet you kidnapped a kid.”

“It says I did what?”

“You didn’t do it, right?”

“Who says? Who says I did?”

“Nicky, you need to get yourself together.”

“How did this even happen to me? Right now, Terry. Come. I mean it.”