Loser's Town Read online

  BOBBY

  Mark has to get us aside and scold us. We’ll be doing a scene and start giggling and it’s like ‘time out’ and Mark makes us sit at opposite ends of the stage until we stop giggling.

  BEV

  It sounds like a dream.

  BOBBY

  Oh yeah, it is like a dream. Working with all these great people, and there’s this amazing script – Denny Kessel, who won an Oscar for Lowdown – and Mark Sterling, a wonderful director . . . Yeah, it is like a dream. Sometimes I want to pinch myself.

  BEV

  So this performance, does it have Oscar written on it? The buzz is amazing.

  BOBBY

  Oh gosh. I don’t even want to think about that. You know, you just go out there and do the best you can, just give it what you’ve got with all your heart. I mean, an Oscar . . . It’s nice people like my work, but in the end it’s about pleasing the fans, right? and trying to make a good movie.

  BEV

  Thank you, Bobby Dye, for taking the time out to talk to us.

  BOBBY

  My pleasure, Bev.

  *

  Bobby and Spandau were at Bobby’s place. They were sitting in front of a giant plasma TV and eating Buffalo chicken wings washed down by an expensive bottle of Napa Zinfandel.

  ‘She’s hot,’ Bobby said around a chicken wing. He backed up the DVD and played it again. ‘There, you see that? The way she laughs and leans forward there, that little jiggle. She wasn’t wearing a bra. You can’t tell it on screen but those babies were on display. She gave me her phone number.’

  ‘Your life is hell all right,’ said Spandau.

  ‘You think this wine is okay with the chicken wings? It’s a Zin.’

  ‘It seems pretty good to me.’

  ‘I didn’t think a French wine would be up to it. I got about a hundred French wines in the basement. I’m like an addict now. Or maybe we should have gone with beer? You think wine with chicken wings is fucking pretentious, don’t you?’

  ‘Look, it’s fine. I don’t know what the current snobbery is for wine and chicken wings but it seems pretty good to me. I wouldn’t worry about it.’

  ‘Jesus, you know, my mother worked in a fucking factory. She made can openers for thirty years, you know, those kind you turn the wing around and around? I drink a nice bottle of wine and I can’t get past that.’

  ‘You’re a success. Enjoy it.’

  ‘Nouveau riche. I think everybody’s watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. Order the wrong wine, eat with the wrong fork. Hell, they are watching me. I can’t eat soup with crackers in public, you know that? I can’t have a fucking bowl of chili anymore, in case I get fucking crumbs all over the place and it winds up in a newspaper someplace.’

  ‘That’s the price. You’re not so naive you didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘Not like this. And now with cellphone cameras, I’m afraid to take a shit in public, somebody’ll shove the thing under the wall and take off running. A big picture on the internet of me on the shitter, my pants down around my ankles.’

  ‘There are laws.’

  ‘You going to sue some fourteen-year-old? By the time you find the goddamn thing is out there it’s too late.’

  ‘You ever been to Mexico City?’ Spandau asked him. ‘Take a drive along the outskirts. There are people who have to shit in public because there’s no place else to go.’

  Bobby threw down his chicken wing. ‘Jesus, what are you supposed to be? The fucking voice of moral authority? My fucking conscience? I tell you how I feel and you fucking try to put it down, make it less than what it is?’

  ‘Calm down.’

  ‘Fuck you, man. I thought I could talk to you. I don’t get to do this with anybody. I can’t even talk to my fucking mother anymore, or my own fucking brother. This is exactly the sort of shit I hear. You think I don’t know how lucky I am? But you think that somehow increases the number of people I can trust? How many people you think I can trust? How many friends you think I got these days?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to belittle it. I was just trying to put it into perspective. You’re not the only one with problems.’

  ‘Yeah, but those people in the slums of Mexico City, they got problems. But they got one set of problems and I got another. At least they fucking got each other. This place I’m in, it’s like a fucking shark tank.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be sorry, I just want you to listen.’

  ‘Look, maybe I’m the wrong guy for this.’

  ‘Why? You’re not fucking interested? You just want to do your job and go home?’

  ‘You’re talking to me because you think I’m safe, because you know I can’t tell anybody, because I’m tied up the wazoo with the same fucking confidentiality clauses everybody around you signs. Why me? Look, you want a sycophant, I’m not it. You want somebody to tell you how great you are and absolve you for being the occasional privileged asshole, it’s not me.’

  ‘I thought we were friends.’

  ‘I’m not your friend, I’m the fucking hired help. I’m like the maid or the gardener. I’m bought and paid for. And frankly I resent your pretending it’s otherwise. It’s insulting.’

  ‘What do you want me to do? Fire you, and then maybe we can be pals?’

  ‘Yeah. Fire me and let’s see how long this lasts.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I need you. I need you to help me get through this.’

  ‘Through what? This business with Richie? A thousand people can do what I’m doing. I don’t even know that I’m accomplishing anything, except wasting your money.’

  ‘Fuck you, then. Quit.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Professional pride. I’d look like an asshole.’

  ‘Bullshit. You think that’s better than getting fired?’

  ‘Fuck you, then. I quit.’

  ‘Fine. You know where the door is. But you really think the next guy I hire is going to be as good as you? Be any better than you? And the next guy, am I going to be able to trust the next guy? The next guy might get me fucking killed.’ Spandau didn’t reply. ‘I fucking got you there, sport.’

  ‘You really are a pain in the ass.’

  ‘Admit it. We’re pals.’

  ‘No, fuck you, and fuck this whole male bonding fantasy of yours. I’ll stay until we get this crap with Richie settled one way or another. That’s it.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Bobby. ‘You want some more wine? I think this Zinfandel is working out okay.’

  Terry and Spandau sat in Pancho’s Mexican Grill on Olympia. They drank beer and Terry picked compulsively at a bowl of nachos. Terry hated Mexican food. He was nervous about something, and in turn that made Spandau nervous. He kept hearing Coren’s words in the back of his head. Shit will happen one day.

  ‘You spoke to the girl?’ Spandau asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to involve her in this?’ Terry asked him.

  ‘She’s not involved in this,’ Spandau said. ‘Her function is to tell Richie you were asking about her and that will be that.’

  ‘Yeah, but what if she doesn’t?’

  Spandau was starting to get worried and you could tell it in his voice. ‘What do you mean, what if she doesn’t? She works for him, she’ll look out for her own ass. Of course she’ll tell him.’

  ‘And suppose she neglects to tell him, for some reason? Suppose Richie finds out? And suppose Richie doesn’t believe she kept her mouth shut?’

  ‘Look. She’ll tell him. Of course she’ll tell him.’ Spandau looked at him. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Don’t look at me that way,’ Terry said.

  ‘Ah God. You pathetic Irish bastard. I know that face. Not again.’ Spandau wanted to throw the beer bottle at him. There was an ugly little tug somewhere in his chest, like the first unraveling of a tightly woven sweater.r />
  ‘You should see her, David. It’s poetry in motion, she is.’

  ‘You don’t even know her.’

  ‘She’s an old soul. I can see that much.’

  ‘You didn’t sleep with her, did you? Oh for Christ’s sake, you did, didn’t you?’ His mind raced for a way he could explain this to Coren, though he knew the only course of action was not to.

  ‘It was overcome with passion, I was.’

  ‘Yeah, and it’s overcome in a shit-storm we’re all going to be if Stella finds out you were there. What the hell were you thinking? You know the position you’ve put her in?’

  ‘Jesus and Mary, it’s all I can think of.’

  ‘Well, thank you. That effectively makes you pretty fucking useless, doesn’t it?’

  ‘She wants in,’ Terry said to him.

  ‘In what? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I had a talk with her. I told her about wanting to bring Stella down. She wants to help. It’s the only way she’s going to get free of him as well.’

  ‘Fucking Christ, Terry, what have you done? How much have you told her?’

  ‘She doesn’t know about you or Dye. She just knows I have a friend with money who’s after Stella and setting all this up. She’s inside, David. We need her. She can help us.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘You wanted to know about the crack. Stella gets the shipments brought in on Thursday nights, to get ready for the weekend. He sends that big guy, Martin. Martin goes to fetch it.’

  ‘What else, Terry? What did you fucking promise her?’

  ‘That she’d be safe. That when we brought Stella down she’d be free of him.’

  ‘You promise her money?’ Spandau asked him. ‘You promise her a motherfucking Rolls-Royce and a villa on the Riviera? We stand about as much chance of delivering on those promises.’

  ‘I’m sorry, David.’

  ‘You’re out of this ballgame. Just keep a low profile while I go ahead and try to dig something up. And stay the hell away from her, right?’

  ‘On my honor.’

  ‘In that case we’re royally fucked,’ said Spandau.

  Thirteen

  Potts saw her again the following week, at the bank in that same shopping center.

  Potts had a checking account at the bank but he was afraid to go there. When he’d opened the account they’d made him feel like shit. Potts and his piss-trickle of money, hardly enough to justify all the goddamn paperwork. And they knew it. Potts sat there in the leather chair, waiting for the pretty girl with the stiff hair and enormous tits to call him over and ‘assist’ him. Potts watched the solid citizenry walk past as the solid citizenry watched Potts sitting in his chair. They knew Potts was the sort of guy who was liable to break into their houses. They were right, of course, but this wasn’t what Potts held against them. Potts hated them because they didn’t bother to hide it. Potts wasn’t important enough, Potts was beneath the line of civility. They walked past and glanced sourly at Potts and wondered what the world was coming to, this used to be such a nice bank, maybe it was time to put their money elsewhere. The girl with the big tits ‘assisted’ Potts nervously and quickly, wanting to have done with it, while the security guard kept looking across the room at Potts, waiting for him to pull out an Uzi and start killing people. All his life people had told Potts he was going to kill somebody but Potts couldn’t see it. Potts was essentially a peaceful man but maybe he panicked too easily. He sometimes wondered if there was some core of hatred other people saw in him that he didn’t get, but in the end he thought that was stupid. Potts didn’t hate anybody, he didn’t want to kill anybody, never had killed anybody. Mainly he just wanted to be left the fuck alone and get his daughter back. He didn’t think killing anybody would fix that.

  Every now and then Potts had to go to the bank to pull out cash. They’d given him one of those goddamn little cards for the machines, but Potts could never remember his code and the machines scared the shit out of him. So he’d have to go into the bank and write a check and get pocket money with them eyeing him like a mad dog. He got sick to his stomach every time he had to do it so he tried not to do it very often. On this particular day Potts had gone to the bank to pull out money and as usual emerged feeling like crap. He got on his bike and cranked it up and gave it a nice roar, which drew looks and made him feel better. He saw her pull into the parking lot and he rode over. She smiled at him through the car window and waved and Potts, feeling playful, circled her car a few times with his bike, like an Indian circling a covered wagon, close enough so she couldn’t open her door. Inside Potts saw her laughing and it made him feel pretty good. He stopped the bike and she got out of the car.

  ‘Now I know how Custer felt,’ she said.

  Potts made an Indian woo-woo sound by flapping his fingers over his lips. She laughed. It did something to Potts whenever she laughed. The bank security guard came over and glared at Potts.

  ‘Everything okay, Miss Carlson?’

  ‘Thank you, Mark, everything is fine.’

  The guard gave Potts a warning look and went back to his post.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Potts.

  ‘Nothing for you to be sorry about.’

  ‘I’ve lived here most of my life. People get protective. I went to high school with Mark. It’s nice, sometimes. But lots of times it just gets in the way. Sometimes I’d like to be anonymous, be somewhere nobody knows me. Where are you from?’

  ‘Texas.’

  ‘Oh, I should have guessed by the accent. You sound like a cowboy.’

  ‘I’m no cowboy,’ said Potts.

  ‘My name is Ingrid Carlson, by the way. What’s yours?’

  ‘Potts.’

  ‘No first name?’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Potts.

  ‘I bet it’s religious,’ said Ingrid.

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘That’s just the way it works. Ezekiel or something, right? You could be an Ezekiel.’

  ‘Yeah, close.’

  ‘Obadiah?’

  Potts laughed. ‘You ain’t going to get it out of me.’

  ‘I never give up, even if I have to work my way through the Old Testament.’

  Potts looked over at the guard, who was still watching him.

  ‘Well,’ said Potts, ‘I reckon I ought to go. Your friend there is getting nervous.’

  ‘We could have a coffee. That would give me time to worm that name out of you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, I guess.’

  Potts parked the bike next to her car and they walked over to the Starbucks while the guard seethed. Potts could tell the guard liked her and he wondered if maybe they ever dated or something. But he’d called her ‘Miss Carlson’ so probably not. Potts liked the idea of him being jealous though.

  Potts and Ingrid ordered coffees and sat at a back table.

  ‘So what do you do?’ Potts said, just to be saying something.

  ‘I’m a teacher. I teach music.’

  ‘Yeah, you look like a teacher.’

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  Fuck, thought Potts. Wrong thing to say. ‘No, I mean, that’s real nice. You look, I dunno, nice.’

  ‘Nice and dull.’

  ‘No, not that at all. I mean . . .’

  ‘It’s okay. I know I’m not the most glamorous creature in the world.’

  ‘No, you’re . . .’ Potts was starting to sweat. ‘All I’m going to do is say all the wrong things.’

  ‘You can just say what’s in your mind. It’s okay. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.’

  ‘It’s nothing bad, it’s just the opposite . . .’

  Ingrid smiled. She liked playing with him. ‘You mean a compliment?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh, I could use a compliment,’ she said. ‘Now I’m not going to let you off the hook. Now you have to tell me.’

  ‘You’re laughing at me.’

  ‘You’re just incredibly nice to tease. Now what about
my compliment?’

  ‘You ain’t going to make this easy.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I like talking to you. I wanted to talk to you the first time I saw you, in the grocery.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘A guy like me . . . you know. Kind of rough. I figured you’d start screaming or something.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know I wanted to talk to you too?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Rough is nice, sometimes. Attractive. Everybody I meet is so, what’s the word, genteel. Let me see your hands.’

  ‘No, they’re—’

  ‘Come on.’

  Potts held out his hands. She ran her fingers over his palms. Potts felt like somebody’d stuck an electric current up his ass.

  ‘My old man’s hands,’ Potts told her. ‘Dumb Bastard’s Hands, he used to call them. Dumb bastards who got no choice.’

  ‘I think they’re beautiful.’

  ‘Yeah, they sure are.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  Potts pulled them away.

  ‘Your friend Mark there, I bet he’s got smooth hands, like a goddamn baby.’

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘No, it’s just I get around people like you and I realize who I am. I get put in my place real fast.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’

  ‘I’m a motorcycle mechanic. It’s an honest job. I worked hard all my life. You work hard like that, these are the kind of hands you get. There’s nothing pretty about it. Look . . .’

  He took her arm and ran his callused index finger down along the inside. A pink mark was left on the soft flesh. She shivered a little and Potts mistook it for disgust.

  ‘That ain’t pretty,’ said Potts. ‘That ain’t what a woman wants.’

  ‘How do you know what a woman wants?’ Ingrid said.

  Potts stared at her, confused. Ingrid looked at her watch.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I have to get back to my mother. I can’t leave her for very long.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, and believed he had run her off.

  Then she said, quickly, ‘I want you to come to my house for dinner. Will you?’