Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat Page 5

  Something I’d entirely failed to do. In spades.

  A little while before she got sick, I’d convinced her—with the help of some wine—that spending a cozy night watching 1940’s The Mark of Zorro was a good idea. There’s a scene in that film, right up at the end, where Zorro suggests to his love that they could marry, raise fat kids, and watch their vineyards grow. And damn it, that moment is seared into me, because I remember the way V looked at me after he said it, and I could see what she wanted plain as day. And I wanted it too. Damn it. Damn the sickness, and damn the Hospital, and damn this world for taking her away from me.

  I forced my attention back to the TV. There was some over-the-top ad for a car set in a forest replete with autumn colours, a sight that could no longer be found anywhere but on television. Then it was replaced by a hyperactive fast food commercial. Sod it all. I pushed myself up, went over, and yanked the photograph down. After one final look, I hid it away in a drawer.

  At least I was indoors, which provided a break from the eternal drizzle and foul pollution and aimless grey people. I eased up the blinds on the nearest window and viewed a city on its last legs. A jam-packed, congested metropolis that strangled in its own refuse. It was my home too, but not one I could be proud of.

  I finally decided to throw a bunch of clothes into the washing machine—separate colours be damned—and took a long shower that was hellish whenever the washing machine went through a rinse cycle. But at least I felt vaguely alive and a whole lot cleaner when I stumbled out. I tried to avoid the mirror as I dried myself and tugged on a fresh set of clothes. Lately, whenever I glanced into a mirror I felt like every misdemeanour I’d ever committed had been chiseled into my face.

  I snapped off the light, shoved the laundry into the dryer, and walked barefoot back into the lounge room. I grabbed Bullitt and sat back to indulge in a bit of gratuitous Steve McQueen action and rally driving round old San Francisco. But in the end, in spite of the shitty job he railed under, McQueen still appeared to get the woman. And that last scene in the movie—where, in silence, he sets his gun down and stares into the bathroom mirror—hit too close to home.

  My gun was in its holster, splayed out on the floor just near my feet, partially hidden by an old rolled-up black sock. I stared at it for a while. I didn’t treat it like my friend or accomplice. I treated it like shit. Part of me was happy about that, satisfied I’d never fully embraced the firearm’s companionship. But another part of me—the one that panicked in the Test when I realized it wasn’t there—needed it. When did that dependence take hold? When did a fucking gun begin to mean so bloody much to me? And why had I killed that geisha so quickly and easily, real person or not?

  I stared up at the ceiling. It was my take on meditation—I knew every nook and cranny up there. I pictured V lying naked on her back with a quilt draped over her legs, her hair awry. My hand slowly drifting down her face, across her breast, stopping to press softly on the warmth of her tummy. We were so fucking happy.

  I pushed her out of my mind and closed up shop.

  odds and ends

  And then the girl from the Activities was standing before me. You remember her, the one from my recurring dream. The one I murdered, even if I don’t exactly remember the details. She stood there before me, a hole the size of a football cut into her stomach, her hands cradling her innards.

  I lurched forward—the girl was gone—and I think I was still gasping as I frantically looked for my gun before realizing I’d been dreaming. The phone was beeping in its tinny, hysterical manner. I scrabbled around on the couch and located the remote, pressed ‘receive’, and an elderly man’s face filled a box on the upper right hand side of the TV screen. The TV’s normal audio dropped off.

  “Floyd Maquina?” The man looked lost. He couldn’t see my good looks, as I had the phone switched to private mode.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s me.” I rubbed my face, still spooked, and sat forward.

  “Mr. Maquina, my name is Dr. Belvedere. We require you to come to the 6B Medical Holding Facility in Carlton District as soon as possible.”

  My blood ran cold. “Veronica?”

  He seemed to be consulting some papers in his hands before he responded. “That’s correct. Veronica Maquina. Née du Lac.” Belvedere looked up again. “Does this information correlate with your own? We wouldn’t like to make a mistake.”

  “It does.” I felt winded.

  “Do you know the address of the facility?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do. What’s happened? Is she alright?”

  “I’m afraid we can’t discuss the matter on the phone, except to say that this is rather urgent. Please come down immediately. We’ll explain everything to you then.”

  The caption-screen vanished and I sat there for a bit, thoughts running amuck, before I collected myself, my gun, and my coat and fled the apartment.

  The room they left me to wait in was spartanly furnished and boasted only a white desk and matching chair—both scrubbed spotless—like I was stuck in George Lucas’ THX 1138. Perhaps the interior decorator was having a go at me, having placed a sign above the desk that read

  DISPERAZIONE

  in large black courier font. The room thankfully had a couple of big windows, but an entire wall was plasti-glass with a mirror finish—behind which, I’d bet, people were monitoring my every move.

  The huge windows afforded a scenic view of a huge neon Hylax billboard suspended right nearby. Captured there in all its garish glory was a buxom blonde Barbie doll watering a vast indoor fernery as her Ken reclined beneath a solar tanner. Both had flawless features, bronze skin, and straight white teeth. Scrawled above them in a freestyle font was

  Hylax is today’s essential source for enlightened living

  The slogan was also repeated over and over on a booming sound system that invaded even this supposedly soundproofed room. Coloured spotlights around the couple fractured through the rain drops into a massive rainbow hard-sell. All of it came across like a religious diorama recast by Jean-Pierre Jeunet on bad acid.

  I sat down at the desk and did the only thing I could do—wait.

  Ever felt like you’ve been shot with a diamond bullet right through the forehead? I think that’s how Marlon Brando’s character, Colonel Kurtz, put it in Apocalypse Now. It captured the way I felt when they finally got around to informing me that Veronica was dead. Kurtz’s bullet did its job, and I was left absolutely numb, feeling no sorrow, no relief, not one ounce of grief. Zilch.

  Maybe it’s because I didn’t recognize anything in the box of her possessions they’d given me, or conceivably that psychotic episode in the Test got me thinking like she was already dead. The proximity of her death in the Test to that in the Hospital was a pretty brutal coincidence.

  I barely even knew her when she died. I hadn’t seen her in over three years, and the fact was that in many ways she’d become no more than Hospital bills and a couple of photos I had out on display—albeit injected with a large dose of sentimentality and the occasional touch of regret.

  If my experience was anything to go by, Hospitalization seemed to wipe minds and steal souls. The Level A treatment package allowed me three heavily chaperoned visits per year, but that ended up being more than I could take. The last time I saw Veronica she was a broken shell, a pale imitation. They’d leached out everything I knew and I didn’t even recognize what remained. After awhile, coward that I am, I never went back.

  “Floyd?”

  Her voice is a dead giveaway. Not to mention, I’m the one who called her after I got the news. I’m not sure why. I guess I wanted someone with me. That person couldn’t be Laurel given the situation, and my sister was on the short list of people I could trust. Sometimes you take what you can get.

  “Hello, precious.”

  I steel myself and look at her. It’s the polite thing to do. The voice’s tonal qualities are basically the same as ever, but she’s barely recognizable these days. Where her face had once been plump and her lips a trifle thin with her nose a wee bit pinched, now it’s all been hammered out and impeccably contrived. The girl has dabbled with so much cosmetic enhancement over the past year that she more resembles the plasti-perfect 10 on the billboard outside than my little sis. I love her regardless, but I’ll never be used to it.

  “I’m so sorry. Veronica didn’t deserve this.”

  “I know that. Shit, who does deserve it?”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Peaches.”

  My sister drops her arms to my waist, with her hands still clasped behind me, and then leans away. As she examines my face I’m hypnotized by the tangerine kohl ringing her salmon-pink eyes. Her new features have a tanned glow and her bright fire-orange bob cut doesn’t have a single hair out of place. She looks amazing, if you’re into that synthetic sort of thing.

  Her stylized lips—a lovely shade of orange—erect a brave smile. Dot had previously raved on about how she’d had them enhanced with photosynthetic technology. She could flip the colour whenever she wanted, with over a thousand shades available, including gloss, super-gloss, satin finish, or just plain matte—making for a unique daily look for innumerable years to come. It was the latest mass market craze and she’d had the same deal done to her hair, irises, and skin. An orange/salmon combination today, perchance a tone of green and gold on the morrow?

  But when I attempted to peer beyond the curtains to find my lovable little sister, I could find only the tiniest hint of her hiding behind her designer looks and prefab expression. Somehow, though, she pulled it all off. In fact, she looks even better up close and personal than she does on TV. Dorothy was quite the celeb, a weathergirl for ITC, the biggest network on the air. I didn’t let her live it down—forecasting the weather in t
his day and age wasn’t exactly gambling. Rain, rain, and some more rain. But people still tuned in, probably either for a peek at her or due to some bizarre sense of hope that wasn’t yet dead and buried.

  “What can I do for you, my lovely?”

  “You came. That’s enough.”

  “Of course I came! You’re my brother. I love you. I worry about you. It’s the least I could do.”

  “Thanks.” I somehow produce my own smile, but judging from her expression I guess that she can make out the lack of structural depth supporting it. At least she hasn’t cosmetically enhanced her emotions.

  “So, do you have to do anything else here?” She contemplates our surroundings with a hint of uneasiness.

  “No. It’s all finished, everything taken care of. They gave me this here—her life in a glory box. I’m going to dump most of it. You want to souvenir anything?” I push the bland plasti-carton toward my sister. She doesn’t hide her discomfort, so I take that as her answer.

  “At least it’s finally over.”

  “Yeah, finally. For her.”

  “But not just for her. For you too. You can move on now, Floyd.”

  “Move on? Sure. That sounds terrific. Wanna go somewhere for a drink?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Let’s go for one anyway.”

  “Not now, okay? You really do drink too much, Floyd.”

  “The circumstances are a little exceptional.”

  “There’s always an excuse.”

  “Well, try this one on for size—I drink to forget, sweetpea.”

  “I know it’s difficult now, but these feelings will pass.”

  “Feelings? I have no feelings, Dot.”

  “Of course you do. You’re in shock. You’re in denial. It’s natural.”

  “So not only can you divine the weather, but you’re a shrink as well now?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Nope. Not exactly. Can you spell it out?”

  “I’m not your enemy, Floyd. I’m your sister.”

  “Sure you are. Look, no one’s to blame, it’s just the way it is. My wife is dead and I feel absolutely nothing.”

  “And I’m here for you.”

  “I know you are. I’m sorry. I’m being a complete shit.” I ease back and erect another half-arsed smile. I stand up to depart, and it’s obvious Dorothy’s ready to make her exit too. I leave all of Veronica’s things behind.

  strife support system

  “You’re incorrigible, do you know that?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m familiar with the concept.” I’m busy balancing my glass on top of the tottering tower I’ve made from its predecessors. “You got any decent music, sunshine?”

  In answer, Laurel passes me a bunch of discs and I skim through her hand-scrawled titles. “Little Nobody, Schlock Tactile, Slam-dunk Ninja, DJ Fodder, Funk Gadget, Someone B.I.G., Atomic Autocrac, Curvaceous Crustacean, Laika, Belka & Strelka—here’s one I can’t even pronounce: Yağmurcuk Kuşu/Kimsecik?—Is that it? Say, you wouldn’t happen to have something by somebody I may have heard of, would you?”

  “So you want something old and dusty, then?”

  “Honey, occasionally the past isn’t as dry as some people think—and, let’s face it, dust adds depth.”

  “Fine.” She flashes a Billie Holiday album. “Is this aged enough for your taste?”

  “Hmm. I do believe that’ll work for me. I’ll be even happier if you have a cigarette.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And a refill?” Within the minute I’ve got a cigarette smouldering in my right hand and a sizeable glass of tequila in my other, while listening to Billie crooning “You Go to My Head.” Bliss.

  “I’d better warn you that that’s the last of the clean glasses in the house.”

  “Oh, well, why don’t we just aim higher and fill the bath?”

  “There’s a thought. But who’s going to slice the barrel full of lemons and haul the ice up the stairs?”

  “I knew there was a reason I invited you over.”

  “Floyd, honey, this is my place.” Laurel laughs out loud then, with a deep rumble she does so well. I don’t know where the resonance comes from, when you consider her lithe physique. She reclines back into her chair. She’s wearing a tight cashmere sweater, there’s a simple black silk ribbon tied around her neck, and I love the way she has her hair swept up in a messy ’60s beehive.

  Laurel has always felt so natural to me. She’s not traditionally beautiful, yet she’s stunning all the same. Little details—the smudge of eyeliner under one eye, the slight lines on her forehead—only add to her beauty. Her faintly lopsided grin is inscrutable and her amber-coloured eyes—beneath those thick brows—are intense or alluring, depending on the way the light snares them. She made me forget about V for the time being—and that was a blessing.

  So what now, with V gone? I don’t know when Laurel and I morphed from strangers to friends, let alone how we started sleeping together. It never felt like cheating, not with what they’d done to V. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person.

  I remember the first time Laurel crossed my field of vision—I was at Seeker Branch, filing a batch of mind-numbing paperwork with my on again, off again accomplice Hank Jones. I think she had me from the get go.

  “Who’s the dish in the cocktail gloves?” I asked Hank.

  “Beats me. Looks as if she’s about to hit the opening of some European art house movie.”

  She walked straight up to us.

  “My name is Nina Netochka Nezvanova Canyon. You can call me Laurel—everyone else does. I don’t speak Russian. I’m half Japanese and I don’t speak much of that either. Okay?”

  Laurel drags deeply on her cigarette, then snaps her fingers, “You here, Floyd?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Front and centre.”

  “Floyd, I know we made a deal not to talk shop, but I heard something today and I have to know. Is it true, babe?” She exhales one of the better smoke rings I’d ever seen.

  “Yeah.”

  “Christ. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “It’s just that—if it were me—I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “I don’t know either. Anyway, forget about it. Another ciggy?”

  “Mmm. Why not?” She rummages through the pack before tossing one onto my lap. The stick rolls off onto the carpet, where her cat, Thursby, snatches it between his paws, that bell on his collar banging around. As much as I may be partial to kitties, no bloody way.

  “Leggo, you flea bag!” I grab the cigarette away from him, hoping not to lose a hand in the process. “Where’s the fucking lighter?”

  “In your fucking hand.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “And be kind to my pussycat, mister.”

  “So I’ll get him another ringer.” She gently clinks her glass against mine.

  “You don’t have to do this anymore.”

  “What? Sometimes I need you to spell it all out for me, sunshine,” I say, with what I hope is a winning smile, but she’s immune to my scrawny attempt at charm.

  “Being a Seeker.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through.” That was true. I hadn’t thought about much at all lately. “But, now that you mention it—do I really have a choice, anyway?”

  “Floyd. Seriously. Quit Seeker Branch as soon as you can. Break away from their clutches. Your reasons for doing this bloody job are gone.”

  “Dead and cremated.”

  “Floyd. Stop being an arse.”

  “What—and retire gracefully?”

  “I guess. Collect your gold watch and get out of there.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It’s a simple choice.”

  “Is it?”

  “Well, it should be.”

  “And here I thought you didn’t want me Relocated. You know as well as I do—there’s no quitting and no golden ticker at the end of the rainbow. Once a Seeker, always a Seeker.”