Cora had begun to like the whole idea.
“The most amazing place I heard of — now shoot, who told me about it? — the most amazing place is a home that takes in your pet, should you ‘predecease.’ I’m having Steinie look into it. My son is most definitely not a dog person. He’s a businessman, doesn’t have near the patience. And I love my grandchildren but they make Pahrump skittish. Always have, don’t know why.” She stroked beneath his chin. “Maybe they’re not dog people either, huh. My baby is very special — aren’t you, bubblehead? — and very sensitive. And now with this cancer…poor thing, it’s laid him so low.” Tears flooded her eyes. “But this extraordinary place takes our children in — should something happen to us before, or we become incapacitated…I think it’s $25,000—maybe 50 for a horse or a llama. They have llamas, isn’t that lovely? They do, they do, they do. My, I think they even said they would take an elephant! That way you have peace of mind knowing that if you were gone, God forbid, your little one would be cared for till the end of his days.”
BG nodded sympathetically. As she spoke, Cora took in the fact that Ray’s companion was in a different age bracket than her elders but the young Indian woman was reserved and polite and attentive. Besides, she was busy speechifying now, her main theme being that the world wasn’t the awful place the news depicted it to be — the world was filled with caring people who loved all manner of 4-legged angels who couldn’t fend for themselves. We were all God’s children, wasn’t that right? Talk turned briefly to Saturday yoga, and Cora spoke of a class at the Center held on Sundays (“by a psychologist”) that was meant to foster a closer relationship with one’s pet, especially during the healing process. “They call it Unleashing Your Inner Canine,” she said, with a titter. “Isn’t that darling?”
Just then the therapist arrived in a blue terry-cloth robe over his wet suit, with Friar Tuck on a kind of muzzle-leash. Ghulpa was pleased to note the dog had been blown dry, making him look silly, handsome, and endearing all at once; they really were very thoughtful and thorough. Cora encouraged Pahrump to do a bit of socializing but “Nip” growled, looking as if he was prepared to live up to his sobriquet (that’s why his mouth was strapped shut). Rahul tugged on the leash and told him to sit but the Friar went wild, and Cora nervously gathered up Mr P. The poor woman retreated as the dog redoubled his fearsome lunges; the therapist soon got him in hand.
Ray waved a wan goodbye but wasn’t sure if Cora saw.
“He did very well today. You know, we often see this kind of aggressive behavior when a dog has sustained the type of trauma yours has. Not everyone takes a bullet and lives to bark about it! That’s a pretty big deal.”
BG watched the Friar’s eyes lock onto his handler’s, as if in appreciation of the comment.
“I’d like to give you a number to call — someone who might help speed along the process.” Ghulpa immediately asked who would pay, and while he was reluctant to commit, Rahul said he did know something about their case and that he’d be extremely surprised if the City of Industry didn’t cover “any and all charges” that came up; the center had special social workers who “interfaced with the city” and would handle billing issues for the couple. The person he had in mind to hasten Nip’s recovery actually worked with all kinds of animals, he said, quite a few of them owned by celebrities.
LV.Chester
THEY took their Cabazon road trip — to the Morongo resort.
Chess packed his full pharmacopoeia: a grab bag of painkillers, tranquilizers, muscle relaxants, antivertigos, anti-inflammatories, stool softeners, sleep inducers, and the like. And some fall-on-the-floor weed. They were only staying overnight but he didn’t want to be caught unprepared.
Anyway, he wasn’t the designated driver. He sat in the capacious backseat of Maurie’s Mercedes 500, wondering where his erstwhile friend had baked the short-bread. You could smell the leather even with the fucking windows down. Maurie said he got it at one of those police auctions. “The car was a steal.” He laughed and ran some bullshit about how the ride probably belonged to a dealer, “if these seats could talk,” yadda yadda, but Chess was suspect. Police auction, my ass. Maybe Maurie was about to direct a feature or something, produced by that Haggis guy who was supposed to be his big bud. Perfect. 2 fuckin hacks. 2 fuckin Haggasses. Maybe Maurie Levin was a “silent creator” of Friday Night Frights, had been from day one.
Chess scoped the blond hairs of Laxmi’s legs; her bare foot was resting on the dash. Jesus. He could see where the razorwork ended.
Her iPod sat in a dock, playing tunes Chess didn’t recognize. It made him feel fuckin old. He watched Maurie pretend to be hiply familiar, hands rhythmically beating the steering wheel like he’d heard it all before. Bullshit artist. Fuckin scammer. Whatever. It was a beautiful day and Chess was buzzed. The vertigo had receded but that was the maddening thing about inner-ear stuff: it was always in the back of your head (or the sides of it) that suddenly you could be tossing your tostadas.
So far, so good.
Maurie prattled on about Morongo and how rich the Indians were, goddamn thieves and sociopathic drunks, worse than Gypsies, and how the 3 of them should come up with a way to hustle the BIA. Fuckin Injuns — nothing but black-braided bitch-parasites and ultraviolent alkies. Maurie said they should legally declare themselves Native Americans, like that leftie professor who got fired for saying everyone who worked at the World Trade Center was a mini-Eichmann. “Didn’t that asshole say he was fucking Cherokee? Yeah, right. Jeep Cherokee.” Maurie had that blustery Jew thing going, he could make you laugh in spite of yourself, that’s probably what drew Laxmi to him in the first place — opposites attract — Chess prayed they weren’t still fucking, though they kinda sorta acted like they were, but not as much as they used to, not so demonstrative, not around him anyway. Maurie liked to grope her but didn’t do that shit anymore; now and then he body-spammed or reached out to touch and even though there wasn’t anything too pervy about it, she swatted his hand anyway — Chess hoped she did that for his benefit. The definitive conversation about the Maurie issue was long overdue. They’d danced around it but Chester always wimped out.
What was he afraid of? He was afraid of hearing Laxmi say that it was nuts, and she was sorry, but she just couldn’t shake the kikey SOB; that Levin had some kind of psychosexual strangle-hold on her. He was afraid of the pathology — too much of a daddy thing going on. Maybe Maurie and her old man even looked the same, smelled the same….
Chess pushed the bad thoughts from his head and watched the desertscape zoom by. His backpack was filled with dope, and books too — Laxmi had picked up some “spiritual volumes” for him at the Bodhi Tree a few weeks back. A nice surprise. Chess was pretty sure at this point the relationship between them was still secret, and that made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Fuck that prick. He enjoyed having the books along, he’d stowed them away like a taboo treasure trove, thinking of them as love letters. He was “holding,” and it gave him a little goose — suddenly, he remembered the Viagra. Not that anything was going to happen. Not on this trip, anyway. You never knew.