The wake-up

16

"I don't think it's so bad," offered Clark.

Missy tore the newspaper out of his hands and stood up from the breakfast table, hovering over him as she read from the paper. " 'Proving the adage that a fool and his, or her, new money are soon parted, wanna-be socialites Clark and Missy Riddenhauer recently discovered that a piece of pre-Columbian art they overpaid for, in a vain effort to impress the cognoscenti, was a fake. It's called irony, children. Fake art bought trying to achieve fake class. Not in my Orange County.' " Missy glared at Clark. "Not so bad?"

Clark rested his elbows on the table, rereading the column. He was just back from surfing, his dirty-blond hair snarled, his swim trunks soaking the upholstery of the chair.

Cecil peeked in from the kitchen but didn't say anything.

Clark looked up at Missy. "I always wondered what irony meant. So it means being ripped off?"

"It means everybody we know is laughing at us," said Missy. "It means whatever we do is not enough." She stalked around the dining room in her brand-new blue Givenchy suit and a diamond choker with matching anklet. "It means we've been fucked over."

"Harsh language, babe." Clark sipped his breakfast Pepsi. "Come on down to the lab and I'll fix you up something that will mellow you right out."

"I want you to take care of that bitch," said Missy. "Her, and him, too."

"Meachum? Come on, the man already called and apologized. He said he wasn't the one spilled the beans to Betty B."

"All he needed to do was tell her that the wall panel was such a perfect fake that even he was fooled. Instead, he tells her that he had doubts but that I was the one who insisted that I knew what I was doing."

"Can't blame a man for covering his ass."

"I can."

Clark blew a mournful note across the mouth of the Pepsi bottle, serenading her. He loved her like this, up on her high horse, taking names and keeping score. God, she was totally awesome. He kept the tune going. Their first date, he had played her "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on this big glass bong, and she had laughed, coughing out smoke from four-hundred-dollars-an-ounce Hawaiian bud, and he'd thought if there was a more beautiful woman in the world, some king or movie star probably had first dibs.

"I want Meachum taken care of," Missy said quietly. "Both him and Betty B."

Clark shook his head. "Freedom of the press. That's in the rule book."

"Look at me, Clark." Missy did a slow turn, showed off her outfit.

Clark raised an eyebrow. "You look like a prom queen at Martha Stewart High School. I like you better leathered up, hot and nasty."

Missy smacked the table. "It's a designer original; it's supposed to be conservative. I'm wearing it because I knew the article was coming out today, and I wanted to make a grand entrance at the club. Now what do you think people are going to be thinking when I walk into the main-"

The phone rang.

Missy looked toward the kitchen, but Cecil quickly took some eggs out of the refrigerator and started cracking them. She picked up the phone on the seventh ring. She never answered the phone on anything less. "Hello," she said brightly, her mouth set. "Yes… yes, Vivian, I did see the paper. Such silliness." Her eyes were slits now. "No, of course I don't take it personally." She stood listening. "No… I don't need another copy for a keepsake, but thank you so much for asking." She slammed the phone down.

Clark spun the empty Pepsi bottle on the table. "Vicodin?"

Missy sat next to him. He trembled as she lightly stroked his arms with the back of her nails. "I told you when we moved here that it wasn't just about money. I said it was about respect, and recognition, and moving on to the next level. Remember?" She raked her claws across his flesh, left pink scratches in his tan. "We made a promise to each other, a solemn pledge never to settle for less than the best."

Clark chewed his lips as she dug in. "I… I got an idea for a new product this morning. Double-buffered crank with just enough ecstasy to smooth out the ride…"

"The party was a step in the right direction. A big step. Other people have more money than we do, but the art we bought, that showed that we were as good as anybody, that we were okay to be invited into their homes and-"

"Here's the secret sauce-an isomer of ketamine for clarity," said Clark, oblivious. "Whole thing came to me while I was paddling in this morning. I could just see the whole chemical structure-"

"Now everybody is going to read about how we were fucked over." Missy drove her nails in, made him gasp, but he didn't move. "Fucked over like a couple of hicks buying velvet paintings off the side of the road, thinking we were art connoisseurs."

Clark stared at the dots of blood underneath her nails. He was breathing so hard, it felt like his lungs were going to collapse.

"Society bitches like Ann Shaefer and Karrie Jeffords, with their orchid club and their opera guild, they're going to laugh and say, 'What did you expect from that white trash?' " Missy punched her nails into his flesh, then suddenly released him.

"Nothing wrong with white trash," said Cecil, coming out of the kitchen. "Elvis was white trash."

Clark sagged, his head falling forward.

"Betty B's column wasn't just an attack on who we are now; it's an attack on who we hope to become," Missy said to Clark. "It's like she's trying to ruin our future."

"Clinton was white trash, too," said Cecil.

Missy stroked Clark's face. He was growing a beard along his jaw-line, a half-inch extension of his sideburns that met at his chin, the look all the boy bands were going for. Clark was almost thirty, but he looked barely out of his teens. He said it was due to his drug cocktails, but Missy thought it was because he let her do all the worrying. Smart as he was, if it wasn't for her, they'd still be living in a cinder-block house in Riverside and percolating crystal on the kitchen range.

"I love you, babe," said Clark, his eyes fluttering.

"I love you, too. So, when are you going to kill Betty B? I want her done first."

Clark pulled away.

"It's a matter of survival," said Missy. "If we don't do something about the newspaper article, Guillermo is going to think we can be played. Then we're the ones going to get killed."

Clark snickered. "You think Guillermo reads the Gold Coast Pilot?"

"Maybe Guillermo doesn't read the Pilot, but you can just bet that someone he knows does," said Missy. "Some friend of his wife's, or maybe the man who sold Guillermo his last Porsche and wants to sell him the next one. Someone is going to tell him." She kissed him. "That's why you have to-"

"Arturo and Vlad spend half their day keeping our dealers in line and beating back freelancers. They don't need any more assignments."

"If we don't respond, Guillermo is going to think anyone can get away with-"

"Arturo and Vlad taught him a lesson last time. You think he wants a replay of that?"

Clark was interrupting her more often lately. Missy wondered if he was on some new brain scrambler, or just puffed up from all those people at the party telling him how talented he was. Not that any of them ever walked into one of their shops and bought some shorts or beach-wear. She let it pass. For now. "Clark, honey, I'm just saying this is an opportunity to remind Guillermo what happens to people who fuck with us."

"You're not worried about Guillermo," said Clark. "You're just mad because you got embarrassed in front of a bunch of yacht club snobs who don't like us anyway."

The phone rang.

"Cecil, you pick up that goddamned phone, and tell them I'm out shopping." Missy's eyes never left Clark's. "I want them dead. I want Vlad and Arturo to run the route on both of them."

"Dude gave you a full refund, Missy."

Missy snatched the paper. She practically had the column memorized. " 'Douglas Meachum, the urbane owner of Meachum Fine Arts, took pains to assure me that the mistake was an honest one, and that restitution was immediately proffered and accepted. In all fairness, the authenticity of pre-Columbian art is notoriously hard to verify, but what lingers in the ears of this columnist is the raucous bleating of Missy Riddenhauer at her soiree, telling everyone within range of her voice that she had personally selected her precious artifacts, and how knowledgeable she was about their history. Doug Meachum made an honest mistake. What's Missy's excuse?' " She threw the paper down.

"Spilt milk, babe."

"If you won't order Vlad and Arturo to kill them, I will."

Clark tried not to smile. "Come on, you know they won't take orders from you." He stood up, beckoned. "I'm going to hit the shower. You want to join me?"

Missy watched him leave. A few minutes later, she heard him singing in the shower.

"What about me?" asked Cecil.

"What about you?"

Cecil licked his lips. "Let me take care of Betty B."

"You?"

"What's the matter? You have something against a man bettering himself?"