Innocent Blood

Twenty

Astrid didn’t call him that evening and didn’t come around. He made himself a cheese omelet but he wasn’t really hungry and ate only half of it before scraping the rest into the trash. He telephoned some of his friends, including Pete Brodsky, his producer, and Shanii Wallis, who had first introduced him to Margot, all those years ago, at a movie screening in Culver City.

‘Shanii, have you heard from Margot?’

‘Yes, I did. She called me yesterday afternoon.’

‘How did she sound?’

‘Very calm. Very together. Very determined, too.’

‘Did she mention me?’

‘Only a couple of times. She called you an emotional bankrupt. Oh, and a Neanderthal.’

‘Hmm. Comforting to know she still cares.’

He watched television until well past midnight – a strange horror movie called Dark Waters. It had been filmed in the Ukraine, by the ocean, under a sky the color of bruised plums. Dilapidated buses rolled past, with people staring out of the windows, and they reminded Frank of the woman in the mantilla staring out of the window of the railroad car at Travel Town. The seashore was strewn with acres of dead, silvery fish. When Frank went to bed, he dreamed that he was wading knee deep through slippery mackerel, and that a long way off, a woman with a hoarse voice was repeatedly calling his name.

‘Frank! Frank!’

The next morning he drove to Star-TV. Although it was almost midday, it was still humid and smoggy, and the air made his eyes water.

John Berenger had left Frank’s name at reception, so he was given an identity tag and allowed to go up to the sixteenth floor. The two security guards frisked him thoroughly and continued to watch him beady-eyed as he waited by the elevator bank. The elevator was crowded at first, and Frank was pressed up against a pretty Chinese secretary. She smiled at him nervously, and he gave her a quick smile back, as if they were sharing a private joke.

When the elevator reached the sixteenth floor, the last two Star-TV employees got out, but Frank stayed where he was. He waited until there was nobody in sight and then he pressed the button marked PENTHOUSE. A young man came running along the corridor calling, ‘Hey, wait up!’ but Frank quickly jabbed the button again and the doors slid shut. He heard the young man call out, ‘Thanks for nothing, asshole!’

The elevator rose to the top floor and when the doors opened again, the corridor was carpeted in deep blue and there was a scented, expensive hush. Frank hesitated for a moment and then he stepped out. There were side tables in the corridor, with vases of white lilies on them, and there were oil paintings on the walls. Ahead of him was a pair of white oak doors with gold handles, and a gold Star-TV logo.

He opened the doors and found himself in a wide reception area, with white leather seating and coffee tables arranged with magazines. A blonde receptionist in a tight red sweater was sitting behind a triangular glass desk, painting her nails the same color as her sweater. Behind her was another pair of doors, bearing another Star-TV logo, and the name Charles T. Lasser.

‘Mr Lasser in?’ Frank asked her.

‘And you are?’

‘Frank Bell. I don’t have an appointment.’

‘In that case, sir, I’m really very sorry. Mr Lasser can’t see anybody without an appointment.’

‘He can today.’ Frank walked around her desk and took hold of the door handles. The receptionist immediately jumped up and tried to stop him, flapping her hands because her nails were still wet.

‘Sir, you can’t go in there! I’ll have to call security!’

Frank said, ‘OK, fine. Call security. I only need a minute of Mr Lasser’s time.’

He was just about to open the doors when they were opened for him, from the inside. He found himself face to face with a bald black man in a tight gray double-breasted suit. ‘What’s going on here?’ the man demanded. ‘Who are you?’

Frank pushed the door open wider and he could see Charles Lasser standing at the far end of a very large office. Lasser was so huge that it looked as if there was something wrong with the perspective in the room. Three men in suits were talking to him, and even though they were standing much nearer to Frank, they appeared to be very much smaller.

The black man pushed Frank firmly back. ‘Excuse me, sir, you can’t come in here.’

‘I have to talk to Mr Lasser.’

‘He doesn’t have an appointment,’ said the receptionist. ‘I tried to stop him, but he walked right past me.’

‘Call security,’ the man told her.

‘You don’t need to,’ said Frank. ‘I need one word with Mr Lasser, that’s all. Mr Lasser! I need to have a quick word!’

The man took hold of Frank’s security badge. ‘This says you have an appointment with Mr John Berenger on the sixteenth floor. You’ve made a mistake here, sir. This is the penthouse.’

‘Mr Lasser!’ Frank shouted. ‘I need to talk to you about Astrid!’

Charles Lasser stopped talking to three men in his office, and peered toward the doors. ‘Stanley!’ he called, his voice was a thick, volcanic rumble. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

‘This gentleman’s lost, Mr Lasser, sir, that’s all.’

‘Get rid of him, will you?’

‘Yes, sir, Mr Lasser, sir!’

But then Frank wrestled his way past him, and said, ‘You beat her, didn’t you? You stubbed your cigarettes out on her back! What else did you do to her, you goddamned sadist?’

The black man twisted Frank’s arms behind his back and manhandled him back through the doors, but Charles Lasser shouted, ‘Wait!’ He came striding across the office and stood over Frank, looking down at him in disbelief.

Charles Lasser had a forehead like an overhanging rock formation, under which his eyes glittered as if they were hiding in caves. His nose was enormous and complicated, with a bony bridge and wide, fleshy nostrils, and his chin was deeply cleft. His thinning hair was dyed intensely black, and combed straight back over his ears.

He was wearing a billowing white shirt with bright green suspenders and a garish green necktie with purple patterns on it. He smelled very strongly of lavender.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ he demanded.

‘Frank Bell. You know that comedy show If Pigs Could Sing? That’s mine. Creator, writer, associate producer.’

‘What are you doing here? What’s all this crap about cigarette burns?’

‘You’re asking me? I should be asking you, for Christ’s sake. Five cigarette burns, all over her back, not to mention multiple bruises and contusions and black eyes! Gives you a thrill, does it, beating up on defenseless girls?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stanley, throw him out of here!’

‘I’m talking about Astrid, Mr Lasser. Don’t tell me your memory’s that short.’

‘I don’t know any Astrid, my friend, and if I were you I wouldn’t say one single word more about beatings or bruises or cigarette burns, because if you do I will sue you into total poverty.’

Stanley tried to frogmarch Frank away, but Frank jabbed his elbow into his stomach and pushed him back against the door jamb. ‘You don’t know any Astrid?’ he challenged. ‘Who are you trying to kid? Brunette, short hair, twenty-four years old, came to see you at your house yesterday morning? Ring any bells?’

Charles Lasser stared at him with those tiny, deeply hidden eyes. He breathed steadily through his mouth but for nearly ten seconds he didn’t say anything at all. It seemed to Frank as if he were trying to work something out in his head, something that didn’t fit his known perception of the world around him.

‘If Pigs Could Sing?’ he said at last. ‘That’s Fox, isn’t it?’

Frank said, ‘I’m warning you, leave her alone. I can’t tell her what to do. I can’t tell her not to see you again. But if you hurt her once more, just once, then I swear to God I will personally beat the shit out of you, and I will make sure that the cops and the media know why I did it.’

Charles Lasser pointed a finger at him – a big, thick finger with a squared-off nail. ‘You listen to me, little man. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, or where you got all of your lunatic ideas from, but you’re treading on very dangerous ground here. My advice to you is to leave this building right now. If you ever repeat this slander to anybody, ever again, I’ll have you hunted down like the vermin you are, and exterminated.’

‘OK,’ said Frank. ‘I’m going. But you be warned, Mr Lasser. One more bruise, one more bite, one more cigarette burn, and I’ll be coming after you.’

Charles Lasser had already turned his back. The three men in his office took two or three nervous steps away from him, like gazelles when a lion unexpectedly changes direction.

‘Now what about this fucking offer?’ he growled. ‘Where do we stand on the anti-trust laws?’

Frank tried to phone John Berenger from his car to tell him that he couldn’t make their appointment, but his personal assistant told him, ‘Mr Berenger is in a meeting with Mr Lasser right now.’ Jesus, already? He hoped that Sloop wasn’t about to lose his job. Charles Lasser had been known to fire people simply because they smiled at him in a way that he found disrespectful. ‘Did I say something funny? Here’s something really hilarious: you’re sacked.’

He called Lizzie and at her suggestion they met for lunch at Injera, an Ethiopian restaurant on La Brea. Frank’s car was parked by the tallest, spindliest black man he had ever encountered, and it seemed that all of the waiters in the restaurant were equally tall and spindly, with knowing smiles that seemed to suggest that they knew something Frank didn’t. The walls were covered in red and brown batik and there were copper lamps and carved birds hanging from the ceiling. Lizzie was sitting in a dark corner hidden by a frondy plant. She was wearing a lime-green suit with extravagantly flared pants and a necklace that looked like a string of cherry tomatoes.

‘I don’t think I ever ate Ethiopian before,’ said Frank, settling into his carved wooden chair and picking up the menu.

‘It’s an acquired taste,’ Lizzie told him. ‘I have to confess that I haven’t acquired it yet, but they let me smoke.’

A waiter came up and Frank ordered a Harar beer. It was sweeter and stronger than domestic beer, but it was served with a dish of hot chilies and pickles and spicy nuts so he barely tasted it. Lizzie stuck with her usual Polish vodka, straight up and straight out of the freezer compartment.

‘You’ve had more than your fair share of romances, haven’t you?’ Frank remarked.

‘Uh-oh. That sounds as if you’re looking for advice.’

‘Not really. More like clarification.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was wondering if you’ve ever had an affair with somebody you knew nothing about. I’m not talking about a one-night stand here, I’m talking about an ongoing relationship that looks as if it could get serious.’

Lizzie took out a Marlboro and lit it. ‘I once had an affair with a man who told me that he did all of Marilyn Monroe’s lighting. Biff, his name was, can you believe it? Biff Brennan. “Miss Monroe, she doesn’t trust anybody else with her lights but me.” It turned out that he cleaned her windows.’

Frank shook his head. ‘I’m not kidding, Lizzie. After Danny died I met this girl and we started this incredibly intense affair. Intense physically, that is. And mentally, too, as far as she allows it to go. Her first name’s Astrid, but she won’t tell me her second name, or where she lives, or what she does for a living, or anything about her family. In the beginning it didn’t bother me, because I thought that she was just a way of taking my mind off Danny and escaping from Margot and all of those death stares that Margot kept giving me.’

‘But now you’re really beginning to care about this girl, and so it does bother you?’

Frank ran his hand through his hair. ‘Badly. More than I ever thought possible.’

The waiter returned. Lizzie ordered yemisir wat. ‘Red lentil stew. It tastes disgusting but I can’t resist the name.’ Frank went for alitcha fit-fit, a kind of pungent lamb casserole, and injera bread to mop it up with.

‘Maybe she’s married, this girl,’ Lizzie suggested, breathing smoke out of her nostrils.

‘I’m pretty sure she isn’t.’ He told her all about Astrid’s bruises, and her cigarette burns, and about his visit to Charles Lasser’s office. Lizzie crowed with delight when he told her that he had called Charles Lasser a sadist.

‘Why didn’t you ask me to come along? You’re such a killjoy! I have at least a thousand names I’d like to call Charles Lasser. Fundament Features, for a start.’

‘I just want him to stop beating up on her. Well, to tell you the truth, I want him to stop seeing her altogether.’

Lizzie coughed and crushed out her cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, Frank, but it sounds to me like you’re on a hiding to nothing. You’re a nice guy, an incredibly nice guy, but from what you’ve told me, this girl gets off on power and money and men who treat her bad. I used to be like that, when I was younger. My first husband used to smack me around but I always came crawling back. It was lack of confidence, partly, but it was also this ridiculous belief that if a guy hurts you, that means he still cares about you. It had a lot to do with sex, too. Having my hair pulled, that used to give me orgasms. Nowadays, if a guy pulls my hair, the only thing that comes off is my wig.’

‘So what do you think I ought to do?’

Lizzie reached across the table with her claw-like hand, encrusted with rings. ‘Talking from experience, Frank, I’d enjoy it while it lasts.’

Their food arrived, aromatic and very hot, and because Injera gave their customers no forks, they tore off large pieces of bread to eat it with.

‘What do you think?’ asked Lizzie with her mouth full. ‘Indescribable, isn’t it? I can’t decide if I love it or hate it.’

They talked about Pigs for a while. Frank didn’t feel that it was worth their while to write any more, not while the show was suspended, but Lizzie said, ‘It’s a living thing . . . Dusty and Henry are living, breathing people.’ She said they ought to develop a romantic relationship between Dusty and Libby, and that Henry should start taking slide guitar lessons from an old blues picker called Muddy Puddle, who was born the month after Muddy Waters when it wasn’t raining so hard.

‘I had a friend who received spirit messages from Louis Armstrong,’ said Lizzie. ‘He used to give her recipes for chicken gumbo.’

‘Do you believe in any of that?’ asked Frank, cautiously. ‘Talking to the spirits, that kind of thing?’

‘Certainly I do. My mother died when I was only six, and my father remarried. I didn’t like my stepmother at all, even though – when I look back at it – she tried very hard to be kind to me. So every night before I went to sleep I used to have long conversations with my dead mother, telling her what I was doing at school, and how much I wanted her to come back.’

One of the smiling waiters came up to their table and said, ‘You finish, sir?’

Frank looked down at his alitcha fit-fit. He felt that he had eaten quite a lot of it, but it looked as if there were twice as much in his bowl as when he had started. ‘Yes, I have, thanks. Very good. Very filling.’ The waiter cleared the table, still smiling. Frank was sorely tempted to ask him what was so goddamned funny.

Lizzie lit another cigarette. ‘One day I went to school and I started my period in the middle of a math lesson. My skirt was stained and you can imagine how embarrassed I was. That night I lay in bed and cried and told my mother all about it. I turned over and went to sleep for a while but then I felt somebody touching my shoulder. I opened my eyes and there was my mother, standing over me. I could smell her perfume. I could feel her warmth. She seemed as real to me then . . . well, as you do now.

‘She said, “Don’t cry, Lizzie. You’re a woman now, like me.” And then she said, “Look under my dressing table . . . nobody knows that it’s there.” Then she simply vanished. At first I was sure that I had been dreaming. But the next morning I went into my stepmother’s dressing room and looked under the dressing table, and there it was.’

She reached down inside her frilly blouse and produced a pendant. It was a silver mermaid, set with turquoises. ‘It was hers,’ said Lizzie. ‘It had been missing ever since she died, and my father had looked everywhere for it. Only my mother could have known where it was, so to me that was proof that she really had come to see me that night, and that I hadn’t been dreaming, after all.’

‘Have you ever seen her again?’

‘Once, at my father’s funeral. I might have been mistaken, because she was standing in the shadow of some trees, but I had a very strong feeling that it was her. I’ve heard her voice, though, several times, especially when I’ve been stressed or unhappy, which usually happens whenever I get married.’ She paused, puffed smoke. ‘In other words, every couple of years.’

Frank gave Lizzie a ride back to her cottage off Clearwater Canyon. As he opened the car door for her, she said, ‘Remember what I said, Frank. Live for the moment. Enjoy it while you can. Look at me, whenever I met a man I thought, this is the one, this is for ever. But there’s no such thing as forever, Frank, and tomorrow never brings what you expect it to bring, so it’s not worth making plans.’

‘Remind me to call you next time I’m feeling really depressed.’

Lizzie gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then another. ‘You’ll be OK,’ she told him. ‘I’ll do the cards for you tonight, just to make sure.’

‘If it’s bad news, I don’t want to know.’

He climbed back into his car and waved goodbye to her. It was then that his cellphone rang, and it was John Berenger, and he was so angry that he could scarcely speak.

‘Do you know how close I came to being canned? I have a family to support, Frank, in case you’d forgotten! I just want to tell you this: don’t ever call me again, ever, even if you have the greatest idea since The Simpsons.’

‘John, I’m sorry. I needed to talk to Lasser and I couldn’t think of any other way.’

‘Why didn’t you just send him a poison-pen letter, for Christ’s sake, like everybody else?’