He shivered, straightening his spine.
The zendo had been built by master carpenters from five-hundred-year-old Japanese cedars without benefit of nails or glue. Each morning, the toryos had made offerings of sake and rice to their tools before setting to work. Architectural Digest wanted to put it on their cover, but Kit turned them down in his nobility. He flashed on the whore and the extemporaneous teisho before the shrine of the Buddha: the pornography of hubris. How had the path led him to this? He felt in danger of dying.
Like a warlock, he summoned a Kalachakra invocation to clear the air—“I will achieve complete enlightenment through the four doors of thorough liberation… emptiness, sinlessness, wishlessness, and non-activity!” These words he had said in Wisconsin, before his mentor and friend, the Dalai Lama. These words he had said before Prince Siddhartha, before timeless Shakyamuni, before Nothingness. He whispered Om shunyata-jnana-vajra-svabhavatmako ham and bowed deeply to the void, the hum of his words merging with the drone of a faraway leaf blower.
Stagecoach
RUSTY PICKED BECCA up around seven. Even though Sadge’s things were still in the apartment, she felt single. It was a turn-on. He came in and sniffed around like a cartoon dog. He sniffed his way to the bedroom, and she laughingly had to keep hauling him out.
They drove to Beverly Hills and parked near the big church where Bo Derek got married in Becca’s mom’s favorite movie, 10. Suddenly she got the crazy notion Rusty was going to take her to Crustacean. She started worrying about the sullen maître d’ but figured he probably wouldn’t recognize her — tonight, hair and makeup were in anti-Drew mode.
Rusty walked them toward Wells Fargo, saying he needed cash. He went past the ATMs and into the building’s lobby. It was already after seven.
“The bank’s staying open late,” he said, with a smile. “Just for me.”
For a fleeting moment Becca thought he was going to commit armed robbery, but then she saw a gala group on the other side of the tall windows. A guard was at the entrance. Rusty said, “We’re with Grady and Cassandra Dunsmore,” and he let them in without a hassle.
A peculiar, festive scene greeted them within. Gang bangers and their relations, some in wheelchairs (she was reminded of Valle Verde), upended slim-necked Coronas and sipped champagne from plastic glasses beside jovial white men in suits and loosened ties. A table had been set up with Costco deli platters, some as yet unwrapped; people seemed more thirsty than hungry. Motown played on a boom box. The high-spirited wives wore satiny dresses and as many tattoos as their spouses. Toddlers ran manic circles around their grandparents. Some of the gray-haired folks also had tatts.
“Hey now!” shouted Grady, on seeing Rusty come toward him.
“Hey now.”
They did their bear-hug thing.
“The gravy train has finally pulled into the station!”
“You mean the Grady train,” said Cassandra, waddling over, napkin filled with canapés and little sugar-dusted donuts. Her belly had grown since Becca last saw it underwater.
“You got that right,” said Grady.
“You’re both wrong,” said Rusty. “It ain’t the Grady or the gravy — it’s the ‘bullet’ train.”
“The bullet train!” exulted Grady. “That’s right! That’s dead-on! It’s the motherhumpin bullet-in-the-leg train!”
They had a laugh, then Rusty said, “You remember Becca.”
“I ain’t fuckin senile.” Grady turned to his wife. “Tha’s Rusty’s lady.”
Cassandra nodded, in Barbara Stanwyck—The Big Valley mode — all steely, matriarchal approval. They’d actually met at the party but Cassandra didn’t recollect.
“Honey,” she said, taking Becca’s elbow with mock intimacy, “would you make one thing clear to your boyfriend for me?” She paused for dramatic effect before saying, “He ain’t gettin any! Not a dime, OK? He ain’t gettin even the caboose of the bullet train! Not a red Indian cent!”
Cassandra choked as she laughed, fizzing up tiny sprays of Diet Pepsi that cooled an exhalation of cigarette smoke.
“Now, hey, Cass,” rebuked Grady. “Don’t be like that. When we party, everybody parties!”
A bank bureaucrat spoke up, and the lawyers motioned their clients to gather round — time to get serious. The families of the men hung back respectfully.
“What’s going on?” whispered Becca.
“Payback,” said Rusty in like tones. “I told you: Grady got shot by Rampart. LAPD planted dope on him. Did nineteen months. Got out three years ago, when Perez talked. Took this long for the settlement.”
“Settlement?”
“One point eight.”
“One point—”
“Mill.”
“But who are the others?” she asked, not really comprehending.
“All plaintiffs. Grady said some are detainees — guys held in jail longer than they were supposed to. That’s a no-no. Class action, big time.” Becca couldn’t keep up. “The county had to fork over twenty-seven million. See the chick standing next to him? To Grady? She got busted on some domestic violence thing. They held her an extra day and strip-searched her. Ugly bi-atch. Screws must’ve been hard up! Well, she’s rich now. For that kind of money, I’d do twenty-four hours standing on my head — or sittin on a dick. That’s what’s called a detainee. Most everybody here has the same attorneys.” He nodded toward a charismatic, black-stockinged woman in a pantsuit. “Ludmilla Vesper-Weintraub. She’s got a thousand clients, I shit you not. And every one of ‘em is gonna be motherfuckin rich.”
“But the money they got for their little girl…”
“That don’t have nothing to do with this. Can you believe it? They won the lotto twice! Can you fucking believe the karma of these people? Wheel of Fortune, man. Blazing Sevens.”
Grady bounded over. “The moment has come! The time is upon us!”
“What’s happening?” asked Rusty.
“They’re gonna dole it out, soul man. Then we are going to get our asses over to Gardena! We are going to get in that limo and cruise on down to Hustler Casino! Gonna play me some twenty-one.”
Cassandra kissed her husband, deliberately regurgitating a stream of soda into his unsuspecting mouth. Grady belched it back at her, and they both laughed gutturally.